The Person I Might Become
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "'I was *terrified.* Terrified of the person I might become.'" Volume Three of The Moments We Touch. Sequel to A World Like That. Stein and Spirit's reunion and reconciliation. Backgrounds the events of the anime.
1. Schemes

Spirit is still hungover when the call from Lord Death comes in. He makes a point of being sober and fully recovered whenever he has scheduled responsibilities as a Death Scythe, but he wasn't expecting to get summoned to the Death Room at ten in the morning on a Saturday, so when he shows up he is clutching a cup of horrible coffee and trying to look less like death-warmed-over than he feels.

"Hiya Death Scythe! How's it going?" Spirit is appreciative of Lord Death's careful and exclusive use of his title rather than his name, but just as the moment the ridiculously high register and volume of his voice are piercing in an especially agonizing way and he can't help but flinch.

"Hi," he manages. "What did you need me for?" *Please don't say it's a fight, please don't say it's a fight,* he chants in the back of his aching head.

"Nothing much!" chirps Lord Death. Spirit is halfway through his sigh of relief when he continues. "I needed to talk to you about Maka."

"*What*?" Spirit manages after he's finished choking on his exhale. "What's wrong with Maka? Is she alright? Where is she?"

"Calm down! She's just fine, probably still at her apartment right now." Lord Death's hands are palm-up, reaching out to hold Spirit in place if necessary. Spirit tries to breathe slowly, but he has watched Maka fight a few too many challenging assignments from a distance and it's difficult to calm the frantic pace of his heart. After it becomes clear that the weapon isn't going to go sprinting off in an ill-advised rescue attempt, Lord Death crosses his outsized white gloves in front of him.

"There's nothing wrong with Maka at all. What I wanted to talk to you about is her recent performance as a meister."

"What are you talking about?" Spirit's headache is getting worse, not aided by his brief foray into parental panic. "She's a *great* meister."

"She is. That's the problem." Lord Death sighs. "Would you like to sit?"

Spirit would. Sitting won't help his nausea but it will make it easier to have a conversation since he won't need to combat his dizziness. Maka doesn't have a monopoly on stubbornness, though, so he folds his arms and sets his jaw. "No. Thank you."

"Suit yourself." Lord Death does sit, folding over his cape as if he doesn't have feet. He might not. Even after years of Resonating Spirit's not entirely sure how much of a body Lord Death has, only that he comes back to his own disoriented and dizzy, struggling to remember how to walk and breathe and speak normally.

"Maka is a great meister," Lord Death finally says, after folding up until he's only as tall as Spirit's collarbone instead of looming feet over him. "She has a lot of potential, especially with her current weapon."

Spirit refrains from commenting on Soul Eater Evans and his *obvious* unsuitability for his daughter. She deserves someone talented and skilled and devoted to her, ideally another girl because Spirit knows better than anyone how partnerships turn into relationships and Maka deserves someone better than Soul. But Lord Death gets quiet and uncommunicative every time Spirit seethes himself into saying anything on the subject and he lacks the energy to have this well-worn argument today, so he keeps his mouth shut and tries to rub his forehead as unobtrusively as possible.

"The problem is that she's too cautious," Lord Death goes on. "She's been taking easy assignments for months, minor serial killers and the like, because she knows that she can beat them easily. She's been doing a great job but she's not improving and she's not reaching her full potential."

"You want to put her in *danger* instead?"

"No, of course not, but she's stalled right now." Lord Death looks down, and when he speaks there is a flicker of apology in his voice. "That's why I sent them out after Blair."

There is an embarrassingly long pause before Spirit's brain catches up to the implications of this. "Wait. You *knew*?"

"Yep."

"And you...you *deliberately* ruined their final soul collection?"

"Death Scythe." Spirit realizes that his voice is inching up the register into shrill, take a deep inhale, exhales deliberately slowly. It isn't until he has clenched his jaw shut that Lord Death continues. "They aren't ready. Think about where you were before Kami made you a death weapon. You had fought harder battles and had significantly more experience than Maka or Soul have collected so far. They nearly died fighting Blair, and she's not even a proper witch. Maka's not ready to be advanced past first-star status right now. They haven't even used Soul Resonance yet. Their current status speaks highly of Maka's determination and dedication to her goals, but she's just too young and too inexperienced right now."

Spirit wants to argue. He's not sure if he's more interested in protecting Maka from more difficult assignments or in defending her ability and skills, nevermind the inherent contradiction in those perspectives. But he can't get traction on any argument at all, and without the benefit of Maka's presence there's not enough motivation to push him into a pointless defense.

"What are you planning?" he says instead, because Lord Death always has some plan, even when it's entirely illogical.

"Ah. Well." Lord Death is looking at his hands and...twiddling his thumbs, apparently. Spirit didn't know that he *could* do that. "I'm going to give her an assignment she can't win."

There is a beat, long enough for the cold panic to flood all of Spirit's veins, and then he is on fire with the need to defend Maka. "What." There is no strain in his voice this time, just cold promise of fury if Lord Death doesn't offer a better explanation.

His current meister hears it, looks up, and then his hands are up at his sides as if Spirit is pointing a gun at him. "Not with an actual enemy! She'll be perfectly safe. I've already got co-conspirators to work with us on this, but she can't know that there's anything unusual about this assignment or it will be pointless."

Spirit shuts his eyes and presses his fingers against the bridge of his nose. It would be easier to follow this conversation if it were later in the day or he were less hungover or it were with someone other than the often-unintelligible Lord Death. His brain is fumbling with the pieces, trying to come up with a suitable alternative but skidding on exhaustion and dehydration and his rising headache. "What *exactly* do you have in mind?"

Lord Death folds his hands and Spirit knows right then that he's lost the fight, that now it's just a matter of working out the details. "I'll put her up against a three-star meister, Sid Barrett. He's volunteered to help out with this; zombification and a few rumors should do the trick. Maka and Black*Star can go out with Soul and Tsubaki and take him on; Black*Star's been nearly as troublesome as Maka, though his challenges are somewhat different. Did you know that he took out the Sword God in single combat the other day? He only won due to a transpositional trick and I doubt that will work again but under pressure he really rises to the challenge!"

Something about Spirit's expression brings Lord Death's rambling to a halt. He clears his throat and continues. "Sid should provide enough challenge to require some actual work from all four of them. If not, they can go after the 'mastermind' behind Sid's transformation." Lord Death's voice twinges in amusement at the cleverness of his own story. Spirit doesn't roll his eyes. Quite. "That will be more than enough to push them to their limits."

"How can you be so sure they'll lose?" Spirit asks. He's grasping at straws; he's seen Sid in combat, and even on his own the meister is a force to be reckoned with, but he wants to argue in spite of his physical discomfort.

"I'll send them after Stein."

The fight in Spirit's head dies entirely as all of his thoughts go utterly blank. "Oh."

"That should be more than sufficient, don't you think? I know you haven't fought together in some time, but you did have the first impression of him at the Academy. He should be more than capable of taking on two first-star meisters at once."

"Yes." Spirit's voice sounds distant to his ears as if he is hearing a recording of his own speech. "Definitely." It takes him a moment to clear his thoughts into a singular thought, another moment to clear his throat and verify that his voice is relatively normal. "He's back, then?"

"Yep. Called him back from Germany specially for this assignment."

"Ah." He turns before he's excused, heading down the red archway to the exit and letting his feet decide his route for him. Lord Death calls after him - "Death Scythe?" - but he keeps going, not sure if the flutter in his stomach is panic or excitement or a terrible combination of both, but very sure that sufficient sake will get him through this as it gets him through everything, now.


	2. Acting

It has been years since Stein had so much trouble focusing on the work in front of him. Usually caffeine is enough to do the trick, and in recent years nicotine has filled in all the gaps that a constant flow of black coffee couldn't cover, but today his blood is trembling in his veins and his thoughts are skidding sideways and he just can't focus on the screen in front of him.

"Can't seem to get my head on straight," he mumbles to the silent laboratory around him. The screw twists easily, jostling the whispers and the laughter and the memories and the hallucinations and the guilt into a new alignment, but he knows before he even moves to jumble them that it won't help.

He sighs, leans back in his chair, lets his eyes unfocus. "I give up." He shoves off from the desk, rolling himself backward into the whispering shadows of the empty building. "Too tired." He tries the words out in the space of his brain, trying to fit them to his symptoms as if they will offer an adequate explanation even though he knows deep, deep in his scrambled mind and trembling body that that isn't the cause at all. Exhaustion is normal; with no regular partner for the last two years he has given himself over entirely to his instinct for marathons of waking-and-sleeping cycles that sometimes take more than a week to resolve. It's not lack of sleep that is getting to him; if anything he is on edge, jittery down in his bones. He can feel them humming, warm and excited with anticipation, and when he closes his eyes he can *see* the cause behind his eyelids, and he's not ready for that so he keeps his eyes open even though there's nothing to see on the smoke-stained ceiling of the lab.

He has no idea how long he stays there, blinking at the shadows as if they are the cause of his thrilling nerves, but when he realizes that there is a group of souls outside the front of the lab it happens all at once and he has no idea how long they have been there. He jerks up, kicks hard off the edge of the desk so he goes straight down the hallway behind him. This was easier to practice without a roommate, when there was less chance of actually hitting someone in his backwards flight. And it will make a good show, have the effect that Lord Death requested from him.

Stein has made it all the way down the hall before. He did not consider the inch-high fall from the hall to the actual front step of the lab, however, and when the back wheel of his chair hits the drop it tips over, dropping him hard onto the concrete so his first view of the Academy students is upside-down and consists mostly of swathes of color, a flicker of mismatched souls, and shocked expressions.

He turns his back on them, brushes the dust off the back of his coat. "Damn it, it still doesn't feel quite right." His mind is murmuring static, half-heard words and flashes of bright color and the crackle of electricity and the smell of blood and he tries another turn to the screw, but this time it is mostly for effect; he's ready for the shuffle in his thoughts, prepared for the lack of any effect on the real problem. And this time he's got a glance at the children in front of him to absorb. "Hmmm. Maybe that'll take care of it. Okay, I'm gonna try that again," he announces, dragging the chair back inside.

It takes him a minute to walk back up the hallway, which means he has a minute to calm down. At least she doesn't have red hair. That helps. It would have been far, far worse if she looked more like Spirit - the name curls warm even in his mind, threatens another fugue memory that he barely dodges - and less like Kami.

The second flight is exactly as catastrophic as the first, although this time Stein is expecting the impact with the ground and goes limp a moment before he hits so it's not quite as bruisingly painful. He blinks at the students upside-down, assumes a casual tone. "Was there something you kids needed me for?"

"Yeah, if you're really Doctor Stein." The words are flat and very nearly sarcastic, and the tone and the speaker's unusual hair color remind Stein of himself for just a moment. A girl's voice breaks in, high and shrill-edged with deserved anger and infused with all the put-on self-confidence that the boy's comment lacks. *Meister,* Stein's brain purrs. *Definitely meister.*

"You did this! You're the one who turned Sid into a zombie!"

He pushes himself to his feet, settles in his chair and starts speaking before he looks up at them. "Oh. So that's it. I'm guessing you guys are all students from the academy, then?"

"Why did you do this? Revenge? A grudge?" The girl's eyes are sparkling with anger, fists clenched at her sides. Right-side up Stein can take in the lines of her face, and she *does* look like Spirit. Under the green eyes and pale blond hair her facial structure is all from her father and the righteous fury in her eyes reminds him more of his weapon than of anything else, and even the burn of painful memories is warming in his blood. It it hard to push the heat back down, to level out his voice into smooth distance, but he has been practicing masks for years and this is just another face.

"No, nothing like that. I have a simpler motive, experimentation and observation. That's all a true scientist cares about. And, I am a scientist." He is sure they won't notice the dropped adjective, but it amuses the static in his brain, the crackle sounding almost like laughter. It is *almost* all he cares about, after all. "Everything in the world is an experimental test subject. Of course, that includes myself as well."

He can see the horror spread across the students' faces, knows that they are seeing the obvious scar tracing across his face and the screw protruding from his hair. They aren't seeing the grooves in his brain, the beaten ruts of obsession and re-creation and patched-together coping that he has built in the last decade. He wonders what they would do if they could, if they would stay and fight him at all.

The back of his mind is still chittering, chirping and crooning in excitement at the closest thing to Spirit it's seen in fourteen years, but with the strength of habit Stein forces the front of his thoughts to settle into the peace of Soul Perception. He's only just hit his focus when Spirit's daughter glances at the weapon next to her.

"Hey, do you feel that, Soul? I think something strange is happening."

*Soul Eater Evans.* Stein's memory offers in Lord Death's voice. *Weapon. Scythe. Partner to Maka Albarn.*

"Huh? Like what?"

*Not particularly perceptive.*

"Your souls' wavelengths aren't very stable." Stein offers. "What's more, they're quite different from one another." That is strictly true. The weapon's soul is calm, pulsing gently to a staccato rhythm that Stein can feel even without Resonating. Soul may look and sound like him, but his wavelength is far, far closer to Spirit's. Maka's wavelength has all the determination of another meister and the potential for leadership, but it's frenetic, unfocused. This explains Lord Death's motives better than anything he could have said. "I see one soul that is careless and arrogant and one that is earnest and strong-willed. They appear to be in resonance but they aren't." That's only half-true, but he is trying to unsettle them, throw off the girl's balance.

Both the students are staring at him now, and neither appears to be particularly frightened, although the meister's shell of composure is less firm than it was a moment ago. He expects her to speak, but it is Soul who responds.

"What the heck? You mean you can see the soul of someone who's still alive? In that case, you must be a meister."

*Points for observation,* Stein admits to himself.

"He was able to read the character of the souls too. Only the best meisters can do that," the girl puts in, picking up the conversation right where her partner left off. They are trading off responses, although he doubts they realize that. They may be closer to resonating that he gave them credit for. He laughs, pleased to be surprised. It has been years since he was surprised by anything. Apparently Albarns have a knack for it.

"So what? Maka, you can see souls clearly like that too, right?" Soul is defensive, far more irritated by Stein's laugh than by his more deliberate attempts at needling them.

"Oh. Well, of course I can!" she declares, voice almost trembling, and Stein doesn't need to see her wavelength to pick up on her uncertainty but it is easier to call that out.

"Your soul seems confused by that last statement. How cute."

She is really off-balance now, her composure shattered as if it were never there at all, flushing red with embarrassment and discomfort. "Shut up! Quit looking at my soul, you creep!"

"Yeah, shut up little doctor man."

This is a new voice, and it is coming from behind him and...above? Stein twists around to see the speaker, currently perched on the edge of his laboratory. "No one wants to hear you talk anymore. Yahoo! How about we change the subject to a more interesting coversation topic, like me for example."

"When did he…?" someone asks from behind Stein. He doesn't turn. He is only barely containing his grin as it is, and the student is still speaking.

"Who cares if you can see souls? Why does that matter, huh? It's not like you're going to see anything interesting. Far as I'm concerned, the only soul worth looking at is mine." He has none of the fragile assumed self-confidence Stein has expected; as far as his soul wavelength is concerned, he means every word. Stein can't help but laugh, half-amused and half-delighted.

"Yours is an interesting one," he grants, watching the shift of blue wavelength more than the boy's face. "Your soul is extremely self-centered and more than a little bit wild. It must be rather difficult to find a partner with a soul that's compatible with your own, isn't it?"

A memory of standing in the Death Room surfaces, a boy's red hair and blue eyes and the certainty in Stein's whole body that this is his partner, that there is no one else he can be compatible with in all the world, that this is everything he has ever lacked, that he doesn't need anything else from anyone, that the whole world could disappear and with his partner everything would be -

His twist of the screw is a more aggressive than it needs to be, but at least it diffuses the image in his head.

"No more talking," the student declares, and then he is in Stein's space, swinging sideways to kick his foot high at the older man's face. Stein recognizes that stance, for all that the boy is shorter and smaller than Sid. That makes this Black*Star, although the tattoo now visible on his arm gave it away as well. And recognizing the move makes it easy to block it. Stein swings an arm up to catch the impact and lets the spin of the chair bring him back around until his fist connects with the side of Black*Star's head.

"Black*Star!" The scream is involuntary, draws his eyes even in the middle of combat, and then everything makes sense.

"Hm? Ah, yes, I see it now." The girl's soul is soft-edged, gentle and fluid. She could be anyone's partner, Stein notes, wonders if she knows that she has other options. The tone in her scream says that she does, that she chose her partner based on affection rather than lack of alternatives. "You must be the wild one's partner. You're always willing to compromise and have a very accepting nature. It makes sense that you'd be the one who's able to cooperate with his soul's wavelength."

'Who do you think you are, old man?" That's Soul again. Stein ignores the question, settles his voice into eerie calmness.

"Now that I've collected the necessary initial data from all of you, I think we're ready to begin the experiment." Maka is staring at him, her face that alarming combination of Kami and Spirit and all herself, like jumbled pieces of Stein's past all slammed together. He can see the confusion clear, settle into focus as she reaches out towards the boy standing next to her. She doesn't have to speak for him to pick up on his cue, flickering into scythe-form and landing heavy in her gloved hand. That's a twist of nostalgia too, even though Soul looks nothing like Spirit in weapon form at all, but it doesn't make much difference. Stein has years of experience at smoothing over his voice and face into neutrality, and when the girl charges at him, screaming with the unbridled enthusiasm of inexperience, he doesn't even have to focus to parry. Her wavelength is too loud, screaming her intentions far more clearly than he voice, and it's easy to swing out of the way of her attacks. "You must be scythe-meister Maka," he offers as he moves, speaking as calmly as if they are having a conversation and not in the midst of combat. Her second swing is too strong, pulls her around when she misses the resistance she was expecting, and he kicks hard off her back to knock her forward and send himself, and the back of his head, crashing into the fragile bones of Black*Star's nose and cheek.

He can hear the boy yelling in pain and frustration behind him, but far more concerning are the bubbling memories that are lurching their way into his vision, clouding his focus and his adopted role. Steam beading on his glasses, blood beading on Spirit's skins, scars across Spirit's chest and the scalpel across his face and Spirit pulling away and Spirit reaching for him and Spirit falling backward and Spirit... He grinds the screw one-handed in the pause in attacks, speaking as if he is trying to remember forgotten details rather than trying to shake off the grip of recollection. "Hmm, let's see, Scythe-meister Maka...something's familiar about that name, if I could just put my finger on it…" There is a certain amusement in feigning ignorance, as if he hasn't thought of Spirit's face every day of the last fourteen years, as if he hasn't collected information about Spirit like treasure from any source that will offer it to him. "Ah, your mother was a meister and you're Spirit's little daughter, aren't you!"

"That's what my father was called before he became a death scythe." She's not talking to him but he *had* forgotten about that. It's the only thing he has trouble holding on to, the new name Spirit has adopted since they last spoke. "But I wanna know how *you* know about it." Spirit's daughter is glaring at him, her voice low and dangerous, and Stein is really very close to laughing or crying now and he has to look away from her, adopt a tone of nostalgia to cover the shake in his voice.

"I can still remember even now...he looked so peaceful in his sleep." It sounds casual, belying the blood and pain and burning *need* that Stein can recall even in the memory, even with the buffer of years of separation to cushion the memories. And it is true, although the words don't adequately describe the curve of dark eyelashes against pale cheekbones or the faint smile Spirit always had in his sleep.

She doesn't answer, just stares at him, and Stein lets the pause drag long while his mind reels past the film of partnership, carefully this time, controlled and smooth and distant with time instead of sharp-clear with emotion. After several seconds of looking at the stars and seeing nothing, he finally breaks the quiet, letting all the pleasure of the memories leech into his voice.

"Ah. So. You are indeed Spirit's darling little daughter." That came out softer, affectionate with Spirit's name. He overcompensates, veering towards cold, but it underlines the meaning in his next words and works out just fine. "And the daughter of the woman who ended my greatest experiment. I wonder what kind of a subject you'd make." He shoves off from the ground, propelling himself forward as he leads with his right hand. The girl's face firms in determination.

"Okay," she says to no one in particular, straightens her stance, leans in to block the attack from his leading hand. He puts his foot down, the chair's inertia pivots him around, and his left hand swings forward with a burst of electricity and painful reminscence. His vision flickers with green light and the memory of Spirit's shocked face, as it always does, and this time it is Spirit's daughter who flies backwards with the impact. She hits the ground, grunts with the impact, actually *bounces* - perhaps that was a bit harder than he intended - and hits again before pushing herself up to squint at him.

"What - what did he…?" she mutters, and Stein stays where he is, lets electricity crackle over his hand once more. He is supposed to be intimidating them, after all. Maka goes still, staring at him in what is starting to look like horror, as he pushes himself to his full height and shoves the chair out of the way. Spirit's face is back, *again,* blue eyes and bright smile and a fall of red hair and the curve of eyebrows and the echo of his voice and the screw grinds away the top layer of Spirit's face, clears the perfect memory of betrayal on his face and the warmth of his breath against Stein's mouth, but it keeps trying to reform and it takes several turns before Stein can see the girl in front of him instead of the memory of her father lurking under her skin.


	3. Stories

It is very warm in ChupaCabra's. Spirit remembers the room being pleasantly cool when he first entered, but after the first few bottles of sake the temperature seemed to rise by degrees accordingly, and between his laughter and the continuing flow of alcohol he would be taking his jacket off if he ever divested himself of his official clothing. He doesn't, not outside of his apartment, not ever. It's the only thing he has left. The back of his mind twinges with painful self-awareness at the thought, but the front is awash in a top layer of amusement so it's easy to look away from the hurt in the back, and the ChupaCabra girls are *very* good at distraction.

"How are things with Maka?" asks the new girl - *Blair,* Spirit's blurry thoughts offer - and he violently revises his estimation. There isn't time to withdraw from the depression, though; he sees it coming only a second before it hits, and then his cheer has evaporated as if it were never there.

Spirit slumps forward. "She ignored me." He's not seeing the neon lights of the club anymore, nor is he hearing the low murmur of chatter and laughter, just Maka's biting tone - too much like her mother's for comfort - and the distaste in her eyes.

"Oh, poor thing."

"It doesn't matter what I do, she just gets angry," Spirit offers in response to the question that wasn't asked. He knows he does this, rambles on once he is sufficiently drunk, but being aware of it and actually managing his speech are very different and he's on a downward slide now that he doesn't know how to recover from.

Blair is talking again, voice high and happy and bubbly, but Spirit only hears occasional words, "Maka," "divorce," "cheer," and all the girl's enthusiasm can't bleed into him in spite of her impressively undaunted attempts.

"What do I have to be cheerful about?" he asks. It is mostly a rhetorical question; the booze-soaked depression has the comfort of familiarity to it now, and he doesn't particularly want to be rescued from this downward spiral. "Custody goes to the mother. My wife - no no, my *ex*-wife - won't let me contribute anything, no alimony, no medical expenses. What can I ever be to Maka now? I'm a father without any fatherly duties." He's staring at his hands now; the glass table reflects back his face, damp with tears and lined with stress and frustration and failure. He doesn't know what Kami ever saw in him, can't come up with any reason for Maka to care about him or respect him either.

"Doesn't mean you're not her dad," Blair points out, very reasonably and very entirely opposite to what Spirit wants. "Being a parent is about more than money, isn't it? You should fight for her!"

She is full of energy, ready to push him out the door into an aggressive attack on the world and all his problems. Spirit doesn't really have an explanation to offer her, doesn't have a reason for his lack of action other than the inertia that has stalled his life ever since Kami left, ever since Maka stopped talking to him. He is frozen, weighed down by the mistakes in his past and the knowledge of his own worthlessness. It is hard enough to get out of bed and get dressed in the mornings knowing what is waiting for him during the day; it's the last thing he has going for him right now and it still takes all his strength just to *appear* pulled together. He doesn't have any energy left over for anything more.

"But spending money is a way of expressing love too, right? It's just so frustrating not being able to do anything for her!" It's a terrible excuse, hardly deserving of the name, but he can't explain the weight of living to the warm girl next to him and he can't quite face it himself and he needs some way to shut her down before she makes this worse, to make her *understand* the misery of his situation so she will sympathize instead of attempt to fix.

"Well then think of it this way," she goes on with indefatigable energy. "With all that extra money you'll be able to indulge in your bad habits more than usual. Plus maybe we can even find you a new wife. Let's get going!"

"I can't do that," Spirit declares. It's the most true thing he's said all night, but it's easier to deflect attention to the second half of her suggestion than to find the words to explain the empty headaches the morning after his "bad habits," the way that even the temporary physical pleasure of drink and laughter is becoming more and more fragile, the fact that even now his trips here more often end in tears than otherwise. "I've never even thought about remarrying. This is the worst day I've had since I was assigned Stein as a partner."

That has been happening more frequently too. Spirit went years and years without thinking about Stein while conscious, avoiding his name and avoiding the attached memories, but now that Kami is gone his defenses are crumbling around him and alcohol tears them down to nothing. "You were partners with Doctor Stein? Didn't he just come back from Germany?"

Spirit doesn't really hear the question. His mind is offering up scenes from a horror movie, things he never saw himself but that Kami painted all-too-vividly in those first weeks after Stein left. "It was an absolute hell, the time I spent as his partner." He can't see Stein's eyes in the dark-lit pseudo-memories, just reflected glasses and a vicious smile full of self-centered amusement and the promise of pain. "That guy…" Even now, years of habit make it hard to say his name. "He did…" No words for this, not really. Spirit borrows Kami's instead; they come more easily to mind, are easier to echo in the tone of furious defensiveness she used to describe it while he was recovering. "Experiments on my body. He used me as a lab rat while I was sleeping!" It is odd to hear the words in his voice instead of Kami's, low and angry, spitting each word so he can hear her over the unrepressed sobs in his throat, but the flickering images in his head - glasses, too many teeth, white coat and wide shoulders and shadowed features - are just the same, locked down into permanence from months of illustrating Kami's descriptions. "And this went on for five years!"

"Wow, for five years? I can't believe you didn't notice anything." That's a different voice, a different girl settling on his other side. It doesn't really matter. Spirit is not really seeing his surroundings anymore, not really feeling the heat of the air or the flaring heat of bodies next to him, just the shiver of panic seeping into his bones and the racing beat of his heart swamped with pointless adrenaline.

"Oh wow. You must have been really stupid back then!" Blair chirps, patting his back. Spirit doesn't argue the point. It's true, after all, though perhaps not for the reason she thinks.

"The only strange thing I noticed was that new scars would appear on my body every day." He is running his fingers over them as he speaking, unable to stop the years-old nervous habit, remembering the prickling pain of the skin pulling tight against stitches that single day with Kami looking at his like he's broken, like he's been shattered into something new and terrible. "If my ex-wife -" That comes easier this time, doesn't even catch on his tongue. "- hadn't figured out what was going on he might still be doing things to me!" The specter of Stein looms in his memory, taller than he ever was, dark and terrible and impossible to escape, a figure from his nightmares. The possibility of never finding out is horrible too, because Blair is right. How could he have *missed* the evidence, the lines of pain cutting across his skin? It shouldn't have taken someone else for him to find them, he should have noticed the very first time, and even now Spirit's not sure when that was, can only remember the last set of cuts and the burst of electric pain and unfamiliar emotional context as Stein shoved him away.

He tries to not think about this, tries to not think about Stein in general, because the nightmares are bad but they aren't as bad as the dreams that feel like memories, the ones that offer up betrayal in green eyes and a tremble against Stein's mouth, and how can *that* Stein and the *other* be one and the same, it doesn't make sense but the guilt is hitting Spirit now, as it always does when he remembers that agony in an all-too-human face and the weight of someone else's desire and hurt and need crushing the air from his lungs.

He shakes his head, forces his eyes to focus on the actual table in front of him. "I can't stand to think about it even now!" he declares, trying to change the subject even though he doesn't have any idea what else to offer in its place.

Blair is as fixated as a cat on prey, though, and her cheerful shell is as impervious to hints as to tears. "But you were Stein's weapon partner for five whole years, weren't you? Doesn't that mean your soul must have been compatible with his?"

This is only slightly better; there is less inexplicable guilt here, more betrayal but Spirit is used to betrayal, used to people leaving him behind. This is easier to face. His tears fade, settling into his throat as low-range resignation. "You don't understand. It doesn't matter." None of it matters, none of it *did* matter, all the years that Spirit thought he was important, all the time that he thought Stein needed him, the sacrifice he made of his comfort and his future and his body all for a lie. "If he has any interest in a weapon he can *easily* master it." Stein has wielded dozens of weapons, as if just to prove that he could, and even though Spirit tried to not hear he couldn't avoid the constant gossip at the Academy. Seven different weapon types, two weapons at once, *three* weapons at once (though the physical mechanics of that last were never really explained), and by the time he was raised to two-star status no one but Lord Death ever even remembered that he had been Spirit's partner, that Spirit had tried to hold him together because he thought there *was* no one else who could. Stein was this legendary thing and Spirit was just a falling star, Death Scythe the womanizer whose daughter hates him, whose wife left him, can't even stay sober long enough to finish a fight. Spirit wishes he didn't care so much, wishes that he could decide whether he is more upset that Stein betrayed the trust of their partnership or the importance Spirit thought he had. He should have expected it, really; it's not Stein's fault that Spirit is foolish, that Spirit is oblivious and stupid and misinterprets everything, that Spirit is just another idiot..

All the fight is gone from him now. There's no real point in fighting the truth anymore. The girls won't care enough to remember this conversation, and no one Spirit cares about will ever hear this admission. "He's much stronger and smarter than my wife, sorry, ex-wife." Even that doesn't really hurt, not on top of the other pain, "The one who made me into a Death Scythe." Spirit lifts his head away from his reflection, and the three separate images - the shadowed mad scientist, the hurt boy crackling with electric want, the legendary meister - resolve into half-judgment, half-compliment. "Stein's mad but he's a genius."

It's not enough, but no one's listening anyway.


	4. Electricity

Spirit's daughter is frozen in place, staring at Stein like she is *really* seeing him for the first time, and after a long handful of seconds Stein can see her again, green eyes and blond hair and red-marked scythe and younger and more feminine and *different,* crucially *different.* It helps. A little.

"Let's see here. How shall I begin my experiment?" he muses aloud, angling his fingers into scissors and making a cutting motion. The girl looks horrified; she is still maintaining a fighting stance, but her body is twisted sideways and away from him. She probably doesn't even realize she's doing it, Stein considers; her wavelength is flickering wildly, uncontrolled and panicky, and when she runs at him she does so without the support of her weapon. Soul catches up just before she swings, but they're not in total alignment, and Stein barely moves to bring his hand up with another Soul Force. It catches the blade, knocks them both backward, and Stein reaches out and catches Spirit's daughter by her hair before she hits the ground. Soul transforms back, groans Maka's name past what sounds like quite a lot of pain, but he can't push himself to his feet yet and she can't break free of Stein's hold. She's pulling sideways, at the wrong angle entirely, and it's easy to pull her trenchcoat off and hitch her shirt loose of her skirt and up her stomach.

"Ahh, you have lovely skin, simply lovely," Stein croons. It is true. She doesn't have any of the scars that Spirit had at her age, and Stein wonders if that's indicative of the careful missions she's been taking or the desperation of her weapon to defend her. "Where do you think I should insert the knife first?"

Stein has a moment, as he pulls the top off a pen with his teeth, to hope that Lord Death did end up telling Spirit about this scheme because otherwise Spirit will *actually* kill him for this, and although seeing Spirit for the time it takes would almost be worth it Stein would really prefer that they have more than a handful of minutes together. The pen squeaks against the girl's stomach, tracing shaky lines that don't do Stein's steady hands justice, but he *is* shaking for the first time in years and she is squirming and the two together do not make for the neatest work of his life. "Let's see if I can turn your smooth skin into sandpaper."

"You're about to need a new pair of glasses, bastard. How could you have already forgotten that I'm here?" Stein rolls his eyes. He wasn't expecting Black*Star to recover so quickly - that's impressive in itself - but he could really do without the constant self-aggrandizement.

"Easily," he drawls. He can feel the boy's approach, judge the movement of his fists and feet. He can dodge even while holding onto the girl, can probably pull sideways and use Soul Force -

"You're not the only one who can use soul waves to attack without a weapon!"

The surprise hits him harder than any of the students have so far. Marie surprised him occasionally, Spirit often, but in the quiet years alone Stein hasn't felt much of anything besides determination and focus. Twice in one day is...new. "*What*?"

"BLACK STAR'S BIG WAVE!" the meister yells, and his fist connects with Stein's lower back. There is a moment of impact, of a conflicting soul wavelength forcing itself through Stein's body, and he loses his grip on Maka with a hand gone numb. It is only a moment, though; he is surprised, not incompetent, and after the initial shock he lets his wavelength go as limp as his body, forming itself around the - impressively forceful - invasive wavelength.

He manages to catch himself on his feet, steady his body for the minute it takes to sort out his wavelength again, to reform it into its natural shape instead of the counterpart to Black*Star's. "A surprise from the wild boy."

"What the hell is going on? This is useless!" Soul declares, but it doesn't sound like giving up, just like he is stating a fact.

"You deflected my soul attack." It's the first thing Black*Star has said that wasn't a shout. He sounds almost impressed. Stein smiles, although the meister can't see it, pushes his glasses back into position from where they were knocked loose.

"Don't you remember how I checked your soul data when you first arrived here? When I did that I familiarized myself with your soul's wavelength, so now I can adjust mine so they match. When the wavelengths are the same, they cancel each other out so your attack is powerless. You see, in the exact moment you attacked we temporarily bonded." He tastes nicotine bitter on the back of his tongue, a reminder of the more permanent bond he hasn't been able to break yet. "It's like a connection between a meister and his weapon."

He pauses, braces himself. "That was a fun experiment, but now it's my turn." He kicks off towards Black*Star, his height advantage letting him close before the boy can react, and the meister stares up at him in horror for just a moment before Stein's hands come down on either side of his head and he feeds electricity from one to the other.

His blood is singing with the resonant vibrations and all he can see in his head is blood red and it *hurts,* the electricity is shocking through his veins like a fading ripple of Black*Star's experience, and the boy is screaming and Stein remembers that Spirit didn't scream, that Spirit went down silently, and that pulls his hands back so Black*Star goes over unconscious instead of dead. There is a shared shriek - "*BLACK*STAR!*" from three throats at once and Kami's voice is screaming in Stein's head and there is laughter too and Spirit's name and Kami's voice and Stein's name and Spirit's voice and Stein raises his trembling hand to the screw.

"What did he do," Soul grates, horror dark in his voice, and then the screw turns and the past loosens its grip and Stein can breathe again. Sid is talking behind him but Sid's in on it, Stein doesn't need to worry about him, and Soul is *seething* with rage, spitting with rage and hurt.

"Damn you Stein, you won't get away with this, I'll kill you!" He's on his feet, fists clenched, and his eyes are full of furious determination. "Right. Let's go and get him, Maka!"

"No way." It is a whimper, and she hits the ground so hard that Stein mentally winces for her knees.

"What's wrong?"

"This is impossible." Her green eyes are wide, staring; she's not looking at Stein anymore but *around* him, and Stein can see the realization seep into her wavelength like poison.

"The little girl can see my soul, huh?" That *is* impressive. He had thought Soul was bluffing, although he seemed sincere in his claim.

"I can't. The difference between us is too great." She sounds like the child she is, girlish and frightened and *young*, and she doesn't look like Spirit or Kami anymore but just like herself.

"Hey come on, what's wrong with you Maka?" Soul demands. He isn't looking at Stein at all; the angle of his body and object of his speech say everything about where his focus lies.

"I can't. He'll defeat me!" Maka slumps forward to hold herself up on her hands, dropping her head entirely. Even now she is calculating defeat instead of death, worrying about the loss more than the ramifications, and Stein agrees more entirely that he expected with Lord Death's judgement of her readiness.

"What's the matter with you, Maka? Why are you just sitting there? Get up!" Soul is shaking her, and he is *still* not watching the enemy. Stein mentally marks him down for that lapse but up for his determination to finish the fight.

Maka knocks his hand away, voice rising with panic. "Shut up! You wouldn't be acting so tough if you could see the shape of his soul like I can."

Her voice is shrill with panic and Soul is bent over her protectively and his hand is on her shoulder and his teeth are sharp and bared in aggression and Stein reaches up to twist the screw again. He is lost in the tableau before him, the interactions of weapon and meister, and the longer he watches them the more they look like their own people rather than second-generation echoes of himself and Spirit, the more the echo peels itself off into a double-vision overlay of memory.

Soul seethes, fists his hands, steels his resolve. "You're wrong, I wouldn't care, Maka!" He isn't lying any more than Black*Star was exaggerating earlier. "All you saw was a single soul, right? You didn't see your future. You can't give up before you even fight!" When he shakes her it isn't gentle - her head rocks forward limply, but it's not enough to hurt her, the movement careful even with the appearance of anger. "You're supposed to turn me into the strongest death scythe ever! You wouldn't want that worthless father of yours to outshine us, do you? Look up and listen to me! Do you hear me, Maka, I'm talking to you!"

Stein honestly doesn't expect Maka to move. There is a breath when she doesn't, when he thinks the attempt to salvage this pair's potential has failed. Then there is a movement, and when she looks up it is at her weapon. He sucks in a breath of smoke, tastes the bitter air hot in his throat.

Soul chuckles. "Heh. Good. Now look over there and tell me what you see." Not as oblivious as Stein thought. Impressive. "He's been waiting patiently for you to finish this temper tantrum. Isn't that so polite of the good Doctor Stein?"

Maka glances at him, then back at her weapon, and Stein wonders if he ever looked at Spirit that way, if his face ever lit up with borrowed life like hers dows. She laughs, smiles, and Soul's whole face glows.

"C'mon. If we die we die cool." Oh dear. That is a singularly...odd thing to say. Still, Maka is getting to her feet, and she's looking at him without crying now, and her face is determined as it hasn't been up until this point.

"Sorry about that. I'm better now," she declares, and Soul grins like a razor, all sharp edges and violent pleasure.

"No problem." He flickers into scythe-form. Stein can only hear Maka shout "Let's go Soul Resonance!" but he can see her wavelength and Soul's reaching out towards each other, forming into a complete whole as he honestly doubted they could.

*The Resonance of the Souls,* his memory purrs. It has been so long, too long since he held a weapon, since he did anything other than study and operate and experiment, and seeing the connection in front of him rises nostalgia bittersweet in his memories. His mind is chanting back the litany, read and reread so often at the Academy that it is permanently graven in his memory, the words coming with the high voice of his past self instead of the smoke-roughened tones of the present. *Meister and weapon harmonize. The meister passes soul waves to the weapon,* - "the weapon" will always be Spirit in his mind, has been for decades - *The weapon then magnifies the waves and passes them back. They repeat this process until they create a soul wave more powerful than either is alone.*

He has been alone too long.

Maka and Soul have been Resonating while he reflects, building themselves up to Witch Hunter. Maka yells something in response to Soul, and their wavelengths crackle into the next frequency up.

*I'm impressed. She can use the Witch Hunter when she's still so young.* Stein thinks, but what he says is a taunt. "You're putting everything into one hit?"

Maka doesn't answer. Good. She's learning. Stein braces himself, holds his hands wide. "Come on! Let's see exactly how much your souls can handle!"

Maka yells, the scythe in her hands blossoms into a glowing white crescent, and she charges forward, keeping her weight pulled over to the side so she can maintain control of the much-heavier weapon. It swings at Stein's face, but he doesn't dodge, just brings his hands together and catches the cutting edge between them. The Resonance thrums through him but it's nothing compared to the tingle of Spirit's proximity or the electrical jolt of Soul Force and it's easy to manage.

Then Soul and Maka step up their Resonance *again,* and the glass lens in front of Stein's left eye gives way, cracking into three pieces down the middle. Very impressive.

"You can control the witch hunter too!" he shouts, almost a compliment, but there's no way they'll win this and he's getting bored. "But I'm afraid your skills are too rough."

It is easy to call up Spirit's face, easy to let the frustration and anticipation and guilt crackle through his hands, and the scythe between his palms shatters like it is made of paper-thin glass. Soul clatters to the ground, Maka falls backward; as Stein approaches he can hear her pained inhalation.

"You managed to remain conscious." He is surprised, again, although Maka didn't take the impact directly and that should have helped. It is still nothing short of impressive, the more so when Soul transforms back into human form to curl protectively over Maka's limp body.

The weapon shouldn't be able to move at all, shouldn't be thinking or speaking for some time now, but he is glaring up at Stein like he's about to fight him off single-handedly. "Back away, I won't let you touch my meister."

Stein's voice comes out gentle, but that's okay. The charade is all but over. "In that case, I'll start with you." He reaches out, rests a hand against the top of Soul's white hair. "You earned a passing grade, good job."

"Huh?" Both Soul and Maka look shocked, blank with confusion.

"Your extra lessons have been completed. You gave up your own body to protect your meister. That's all you need to earn a passing grade from me." He smiles. The echo of Spirit's words is sweet in his mouth, warm on his tongue, and the expression is not entirely forced.


	5. Confrontation

The infirmary is colder than most places in the Academy. Spirit's not sure if this for some strange medical purpose he's not aware of or if it's just that the enclosed space holds the air conditioning in better than others, but he is almost shivering even in his coat. Still, too-cold in the infirmary is far better than wandering the halls aimlessly. He came with the intention of tracking Maka down and cornering her into the two minutes of conversation he can usually get in a week, but somewhere between the sake last night and the headache this morning he lost track of the assignment she left on yesterday.

*I screwed up.* Not that that's any sort of surprise. If anything it's kind of his thing, managing to fuck up even the simplest tasks in record time. *Maka isn't even at school right now. All this risk for nothing. The only place to see Maka's here at the academy.* She won't see him anywhere else, won't acknowledge his presence or let him make her dinner or take her out for a movie, no matter how much he begs. *So I came, sure, but coming here means I might run into *him*.* The thought rings heavy with dread and Spirit's mental images are swirling into clarity in spite of his best attempts to avoid the subject and the accompanying racing heart and frantic need to run. *Franken…* It's hard to force the syllables to form in his head, hard to face the name after so long avoiding it. *Stein!* The image coalesces, dark-edged outline and too-white coat, glowing glasses and sharp smile. Spirit can feel his heartbeat speed, the adrenaline sweep through his veins until he's actually shaking from a combination of panic and cold. His thoughts spin on, chanting in the back of his head as if he's having a conversation with himself, talking himself up into panic instead of down out of it. *All I wanted was to see my daughter. Instead I'm staring straight into the face of danger!* The thought of Maka helps a little, crushes his desire to run to tolerable levels, firms his backbone with fatherly protectiveness. *But don't worry Maka.* It's probably better to talk to his daughter in his head rather than himself. The implications are less worrying and it's the next best thing to talking to her directly. The best he can get, usually. *Your papa's not going to back down! I will overcome this obstacle, and when I do you'll *know* how much I love you, you'll finally understand!*

Maka's not here, of course. It's unlikely she'll ever find out about this or care if she does. She doesn't even know about Stein, doesn't know that Spirit ever had a partner other than Kami, and certainly doesn't know about the tracery of scars across Spirit's chest. The button-up shirt does more than grant Spirit the illusion of propriety and competence, after all.

He pulls his thoughts away from that path again, shoves the shadows to the back of his mind where they belong. He's avoided this subject for Maka's whole life, his recent lapse at ChupaCabra's notwithstanding; he can keep it up, keep his distance from Stein and from the resultant memories. There is absolutely no reason he should ever come back in contact with the meister.

With the shadows tucked away it is easy to light his attention on something else, something to hold his attention without opening up the pathways to shadowy introspection. *But before I do that I need to have the lovely school nurse heal my wounded heart and give me courage!* Perfect. *Oh yes!*

When the door opens it takes Spirit a moment to pull away from his internal images. He turns towards the door, flings himself at the newcomer before he has fully detached from imagination, so fantasy overlays reality for several seconds while he begins speaking in what he internally refers to as his ChupaCabra voice.

"I've been waiting for you my angel! Hurry now, and heal my heart with your sweet sweet medical loving!" This doesn't even involve thought; the flowery phrases come easy with the nights of practice when he is too drunk to speak clearly, much less think. "Kiss my pain away!"

He is halfway through the last word when he pays attention to what he is actually seeing. The coat under his hands is rougher than expected, the shape taller and broader and the hair is all wrong and he *knows,* feels the familiar wavelength humming through his body and how did he *not* know it was Stein the moment the door opened?

He is frozen in horror when Stein speaks. The meister's voice is calm, much calmer than Spirit expected, much calmer than he imagined in his occasional tipsy considerations of what a conversation postponed fourteen years would look like, but his shoulders are incredibly stiff and has Spirit *ever* touched him as much as he is now?

"Hey there Spirit. I've been looking for you."

There is a heatbeat of stillness, and then Spirit shoves away, half-falls in his desperate backward scramble across the room to put some space between himself and the embodiment of his recurring nightmares and the cause of his racing heart. His mouth is open and he can't speak and he can't breathe and finally he turns away from the shining glasses and the white coat and that helps, a little. His heart is still speeding, accelerating into overdrive in his ribcage, and there's a lot of embarrassment waiting for him once his panic subsides but right now his body has reverted to the animal instinct of prey trying to escape a predator.

"Oh no!" he wails, not aware that he is speaking aloud until the sound startles him. "Not Stein!"

He sucks in a breath, keeps his back to the door even though his shoulderblades are prickling with the possibility of approach. As he continues to breathe his mind clicks down a step from blind panic into somewhat more rational fear, and imminent death seems unlikely so he tries to modulate his voice into calm. He doesn't entirely succeed.

"I don't know what you want with me, but all the scars from your experiments have finally disappeared." That's only very technically true. It has been a few years since they showed bruise-purple under his shirt, but phantom pain is sweeping back into the faded white lines even as he speaks. At least he can't see them easily in the mirror after he stumbles home from the club, although to be fair he can't see much of anything at that point. "I'm not afraid of you anymore!" That is a direct lie, and the whimper that escapes from the cringing back part of his brain underlines the falsehood even if Stein couldn't hear it in the words. "I'm not afraid of anything!" Laughably untrue, absurdly untrue. Spirit is afraid of all sorts of things. Apparently his panicked brain is a lot less good at inventing plausible lies than his drunk brain is at forming empty compliments. "How do you like *that,* Stein?"

He didn't mean to say his name. Spirit's head swirls with memories, memories of different people that are somehow all one and the same, the echo of laughter in his own throat and long fingers brushing over his hair and silence heavy with meaning and the burn of violence and want and frustration and hurt hurt hurt in green eyes and the flicker of a smile and teeth in not-a-smile and blood seeping under stitches and a splash of red across a cheekbone *how* can these all be Stein?

Spirit is still talking, his brain inventing half-formed lies over the wash of images - "You can't scare me with your stupid science stuff now, you freak!" - and then that flat voice comes again, unmistakably the voice from Spirit's half-lost memories but older, lower, rougher, and Spirit hears the words more clearly than he can hear himself, as if he is fading into the background even of his own reality. There is something else under that voice too, something Spirit doesn't recognize immediately. "Then I take it you noticed I swapped the middle toe from your right foot with the one on your left foot?"

Spirit's eyes jerk sideways with no real intent to do so. The impossibility of this conversation hits up against the color of Stein's silvery hair, just as in his memories, and the *screw* in his *head,* definitely *not* from his memories, and the revelation of *another* attack on his body and he *screams* in frustration. It would be nice if he could stay calm but that possibility was lost as soon as his humanity shut down in reflexive panic, and now he's pulling off his shoes without thinking and there goes his last claim to professionalism as his *stupid* brain goes on using his mouth without inserting filters. "What are you *nuts*?" Well, that answers itself. "How could you *do* something like that to me?"

He can't even remember how to count for a minute to confirm that he *has* all five toes on both feet, much less figure out if there is even any *difference* between his middle toes. That foreground voice cuts through his focus again and Spirit wishes that he could pay attention to *one thing* besides Stein for a minute, that his brain didn't respond so instantly to the meister-tone under the words.

"Made you look!"

Spirit identifies the odd modulation. It's humor. That is humor. Stein is *teasing* him. His jaw drops from the combination of fury at being mocked and shock at hearing emotion in that voice that has never had any before. Then Stein speaks again and it is *still there,* and now there is *pleasure* too and Spirit is quite sure his brain is going to shatter under the pressure of failing expectations.

"You know that little daughter of yours, Maka?" As if he *doesn't* know his own daughter. "She's growin' up quickly, huh?"

Spirit shuts his mouth with a click and can feel the growl reverberate through his bones. If his vision wasn't going red with protective instinct he would be relieved. At least this he can deal with, namely by destroying the threat. It's better than being jerked from fright to confusion to horror to shock as if Stein has his emotions on his leash. But that voice just keeps going.

"I have to be honest, when I heard you were getting married I wasn't so sure about it. I thought to myself, there's no way this is gonna work out. But then, I watched the two of you together, and you seemed so close that I was reassured." Spirit has absolutely no idea what *that* tone is. It's a little bit tender and a little bit teasing and a little bit he doesn't know what. "And then I thought, those two have found a love that is sure to last forever."

The last words hit Spirit so hard that even his fatherly instincts go quiet. There is a ringing in his ears and Kami's face in his head and he can't even remember what she looked like when she smiled, all he can remember is her glaring and her yelling and her crying, and he wishes he had positive memories of *someone* to take with him but he just keeps ruining every good thing in his life. His mind offers Stein's face again as it comes up in his lesser nightmares, the ones where he is the one breaking the meister instead of the other way around, the ones where Stein is just a person and his face collapses into misery before he pushes Spirit away. Maybe that was his fault too, the destruction of the good memories of their partnership. Everything is shadowy now, even the early days when Kami laughed and smiled overcast with his knowledge of the anger that will come later, the early days of winning rare smiles from Stein and half-felt contact bloody with the betrayal yet to come.

He doesn't cry. He's cried himself out about this enough and for once his eyes are dry. He doesn't dig his fingers into his legs, just lets them drape limply across the creased cloth and wonders how it is that he can cause so much hurt without even meaning to. When he finally manages to speak the emotion is gone, lost in the dull ache of resignation.

"Um, yeah, about that. You may not know this yet, but Maka's mother and I…" He knows to avoid the hurt by avoiding names. He has had *years* of practice with that. "We actually got divorced last month. It's...over between us."

"I know."

There is a pause while the words break past Spirit's self-deprecation, a beat while they sink into his understanding. He is flinging himself off the bed before the understanding has even fully hit him, before he has quite processed that Stein was *teasing* him, that he was *deliberately* stirring up the hurt seeping through his thoughts.

It helps to move, though, helps more than Spirit would have expected. Moving feels like action, feels like fighting back, and it helps that Stein doesn't resist when Spirit grabs a fistful of coat in his hands, that he goes limp and just lets himself be shaken.

"Damn it, I'm gonna kill you, you heartless patchwork freak!" Spirit's voice has gone shrill again, high with anger and frustration, but it *helps* to have someone to lash out at, to have Stein *close* enough to yell at, and the weight of Stein's utterly unresisting form is extraordinarily satisfying too, and Spirit realizes that his fear is gone, burned off somewhere in the cycling panic and shock and hurt and anger.

"Oh yeah, and one other thing." Stein sounds perfectly calm in spite of the rather violent movement Spirit is subjecting him to. Spirit blinks and their last interaction overlays this one, so clearly that Spirit can see every difference like it has been painted on and his furious words catch in his throat. "It seems the Demon Sword has turned up."

Bizarre nostalgia vanishes and Spirit's hands freeze with Stein close enough that the weapon can see the shadows under the meister's eyes. Something clicks over in his head, and it is Spirit Albarn the Death Scythe who speaks.

"*What*?"


	6. Reunion

At least he was braced for it. Stein had the length of the Academy to process the impending meeting, time to settle his mind into the right space and let it run on autopilot while he trailed the whisper almost-Resonance in the back of his head to the infirmary. In the first few minutes he ran through the conversation without really thinking while his senses drank in Spirit, Spirit, Spirit and adrenaline roared like fire through his veins until he could barely breathe. Spirit was exactly as he remembered, for all that his hair is slightly longer and his voice is slightly lower and his eyes are sadder and his jaw is stronger, and Stein doesn't know if that helps or hurts or just *is*.

Spirit didn't notice any of the roiling panic in Stein's head. Stein was betting on that, betting so much on it that the flicker-hurt of parallel memory - *he didn't notice, he never noticed before* - is more of a relief than a self-inflicted injury as it has been in the past.

The worst is when Spirit pauses with his hands fisted in Stein's coat, his eyes narrowing with concentration and his violent reactions evaporating and his face so *close* to Stein's. Stein can't look at him, keeps his eyes angled just over the top of Spirit's head, because if he looks at Spirit's *face* so adult and so focused and so *near* the intensity in the weapon's expression will pull him in more surely than a magnet and Stein won't be able to hold himself responsible for his actions.

It only lasts a breath, and Stein's not sure if that's lucky or unlucky. Spirit drops him and takes a half-step back, just enough that Stein can only hear instead of feel the weapon's carefully deliberate exhale.

"Where is it?" His voice is *so* calm, steady and collected and Stein had no idea that Spirit *could* sound that way, he sounds like a meister or, Stein supposes, like a Death Scythe, and for the first time since he came into the room Stein feels like he's not entirely in control of the situation because he has absolutely no idea what Spirit will do with the answer he will give. He's not sure if the sensation is more terrifying or intoxicating.

"Italy," and that is it, he doesn't need to explain further, because the blue-eyed focus hardens into absolute determination but the cool attention flares hot and now Stein knows for sure that he's picking up on Spirit's wavelength too, his years of unspoken suspicion confirmed as he realize that he is not just reading body language and the flicker of always-clear emotion in Spirit's face but *feeling* it too because he can sense paternal protectiveness crush against his wavelength and *he's* certainly never felt that way himself.

Spirit goes for the door, entirely disregarding Stein as he does, brushing past him so fast Stein doesn't have time to appreciate the accidental contact, and Stein has to *stop* him or the man will try to walk to Italy and that will not work and he's going to *laugh* that is not at all an appropriate reaction and he catches Spirit's arm as he goes past and Spirit comes to a dead stop.

Spirit is irrationally *warm* how does he *do* that it doesn't make any sense, Stein shouldn't be able to feel him radiating heat through layers of fabric, but he can and he can feel the muscles of Spirit's bicep shift as the weapon considers pulling away and waits and the back part of Stein's brain, the part that is recording the details of all this while the rest flails in panicked delight, purrs in pleasure that Spirit still trusts Stein enough to hear him out even when the safety of his daughter is at stake.

"Spirit. Maka and Soul need us there as quickly as possible; a plane won't be fast enough. There's a demon tool down in the basement that we should be able to use to get there." Stein's voice sounds utterly calm. It is as if all the thrilling nerves in his body are sapping his ability to express himself in words and he is reverting back to childhood, before he had learned to edge his syllables with inflection and meaning so other people could stand to be around him, so he seemed tolerably human to others.

Spirit nods. He doesn't protest the name or the pronoun; Stein's not sure that he took them in at all, given the look on his face. He looks like he could tear someone apart with his bare hands or collapse into hysterics at a moment's notice. That, at least, hasn't changed much at all.

"Show me." It's a command, albeit casually said, and there is a flicker of shock at hearing Spirit, his *weapon,* sound so much like a leader, immediately followed by hot interest, pleasure and curiosity and this is *not the time,* he has already wasted too much time stalling while he calms his heartrate, and Stein drops his hold on Spirit's arm and leads the way out of the infirmary because it is easier to autopilot when he is in a familiar position.

"What happened?" Spirit's voice is just over his shoulder, the weapon perfectly in step with him that fast, and Stein knows that Spirit has no idea he is doing this and no real awareness of how quickly they are re-synchronizing but *he* knows and only years of practice at leveling his voice keeps him talking. He could use the screw, of course, but at this point the hard part of the first conversation is over and he doesn't *want* to lose the newly formed memories and for the first time in years thinking of Spirit doesn't hurt and he can't let that novelty go yet. When he speaks it is steady and flat and it sounds perfectly distant and unemotional.

"Lord Death has been tracking Maka's recent fights." Spirit nods his head quickly, motion just catching Stein's peripheral vision - he has heard this before. That's good. "She didn't have any trouble with the latest target, but just before she was going to head back she caught a strange soul wavelength a few blocks away." They hit the last staircase from the main level; the temperature noticeably drops as they descend into the underbelly of the school. "It's definitely the Demon Sword's wavelength, although there's a meister involved now as well. We don't know how it made it to Italy out of the Academy, but it's been missing for some time now. Lord Death wants us to go out after it. It's why he called me back in the first place, though he wasn't expecting it to be quite such a rush job." Another flight of stairs. The lighting is dimming now, collecting into narrow sconces on the darkened walls. "That's why we're using the Demon Tool. It looked like Maka was going straight after the Sword, and that's not going to turn out well if she succeeds in closing with it."

Spirit whimpers, softly enough that Stein wouldn't hear him if he didn't feel the waver of panic in the weapon's wavelength, but he doesn't say anything coherent. There's not far left to go, though. They round the last corner at very nearly a run after increasing their pace the whole way through the Academy.

The mirror is covered in a heavy cloth; Stein is pulling it off as he starts speaking, the image Lord Death gave him forming in his mind. "DWMA to Italy."

The silver surface is clear for a moment, showing the both of them back in the dim-light setting so all Stein can really see is the shine of his glasses and the glow of Spirit's hair, almost overlapping into one image. Then it flickers, the color pours down like a waterfall, and when the movement settles it's reflecting the church Lord Death was looking at in the mirror in the Death Room.

It is only because Stein is stepping into the Tool as it settles that he beats Spirit to it, for all that he has been told what to expect and Spirit has not. *Reckless,* Stein's mind murmurs, but it is warm with affection even as he realizes the potential danger in Spirit's panic. The silver settles against Stein's scalp and shoulders as if it is the water it appears to be, but it brings a tingle with it that grows stronger the longer it lingers, rising from pleasant tickle into painful shock in less than a second. But then they are past, emerging onto an alley and time-changed darkness that declare the transition successful.

Spirit stumbles to a stop for just a minute, glances back at the shimmering rectangle behind them. "He's had that this whole time?"

"Yep." Stein is moving forward, blinking into Soul Perception as he does.

"Why don't we use that *all the time*?"

"It has a limited number of uses. He saves it for emergencies."

"Is this an emergency?" Spirit is jogging to catch up from where Stein has left him, but Stein barely hears the words from his focus on the wavelengths inside the church.

"Yes."

Stein doesn't explain further, but his control over his face or his voice must have slipped, or perhaps his reaction was strong enough for Spirit to pick it up via their proximity, because the weapon is transforming before Stein reaches out, without a word or a glance from the meister, without a hint of protest at partnering again after years of not speaking at all. The scythe-handle hits Stein's open palm and it *is* an emergency and they need to cross the space to the church as quickly as possible and there's a soul wavelength in the *sky* of all places but Stein's thoughts stall out temporarily as the gap in his head is filled, Spirit slotting into it as if he never left, as if Stein still had scythe-calluses across his palms and didn't need a set of gears to reset his thoughts because there was never anything missing in the first place.

Then his mind catches up with the rest of reality, the way that Spirit's inner monologue is fuzzy as if with distance and impossible to quite understand, the muscle memory in his own body that is telling him "hammer" instead of "scythe," the misery underlying Spirit's thoughts in spite of the flush of pleasure over the top of them, and there is no time to break down that last because the two student wavelengths in front of him are flickering dimly with pain and terror and they need to get there *now.*

Stein is running before he entirely absorbs this last thought, covering ground faster than he ever could as a student, and Spirit is still distant like an audience instead of a teammate with the loss of trust and the time of fourteen years but he's *back,* back in Stein's head instead of a half-lost memory of Resonance, and Stein can't manage to panic about the situation because he is here and Spirit is here and they are together and there is an enemy to fight and really, what else could he possibly need?


	7. Familiar

Spirit transforms back to human form as soon as Stein steps through the ruin of the church door, flickering through the change even as Stein's voice in his head - just the same as it was when they were kids for all that Spirit couldn't have remembered the sound of it two minutes ago - sighs his name in resignation. *Spirit.*

He knows it's a foolish action. He's safer as a weapon, safer and more threatening and generally far more use as a razor-edged Death Scythe than a well-dressed human, but his instincts are roaring and he just wants to get *between* Maka and the Sword as quickly as possible, regardless of the actual effectiveness of his movement.

He can't see Maka's face but he knows how they must have looked, smashing through the church door in the nick of time like storybook heroes.

"Your papa has arrived," he offers benevolently. *That's right Maka. Take a good look at how brave and selfless your father is.* It doesn't matter what it takes, it doesn't matter if he has to fight off the Demon Sword and its meister barehanded, he will do whatever it takes to keep Maka safe.

The meister appears to be out for the count - Spirit felt the give of skin and flesh in weapon-form, thankfully somewhat distanced by the metallic cover to his senses, but the wound was unmistakably fatal nonetheless. He chances a glance back at Maka to see the glow in her eyes as she realizes who has just saved her.

She is not looking at him. Her whole body is turned sideways towards Stein as the meister pulls his coat up over the motionless form of Soul Eater Evans. "Professor Stein, is Soul alright?"

"The wound's very serious. If we don't get him treatment soon, he might not make it."

*She's not even looking at me!* Spirit's brain wails before he crushes it flat. There will be time to win Maka's attention later, when Soul is stabilized and they are all safe back in Death City where they belong. It definitely doesn't matter at all that she missed his grand entrance, definitely doesn't matter that she is watching Stein tend her fallen weapon instead of him. Spirit's eyes catch on the stitches along Stein's arms, exposed now with the loss of his white coat, and if he weren't still processing what appears to be a fully functional *screw* through Stein's *head* he would be alarmed that his partner's shirt appears to be actually sewn to his skin. As it is there's not room for much besides resignation and the renewed belief that Stein needs a keeper or possibly a straightjacket or ideally both.

"I gotta say though, it was an easier fight than I expected," Spirit starts to say, turning back to the sword-meister. He's not sure how the Sword was able to do so much damage to Soul, given how little resistance it offered him and Stein. Perhaps the surprise of their attack gave them enough advantage. He'll take what he can get without complaining, but the whole interaction was startlingly *fast.*

At first Spirit doesn't process the movement he is seeing, and then the meister stands up. He is moving strangely, jerky like a puppet at the edges but oddly fluid through the bones, like there isn't enough resistance to hold everything entirely solid. Dark liquid pours *up* from his shoulderblades, dripping into arms and a head and cartoonish white features.

"Do I get a thank you?" it demands of the meister. The boy cowers, cringes away from the *thing* protruding from his back, and manages a "Yeah, thank you."

"Thank you *very much* Are you gonna make me hurt you?"

"Thank you very much!"

Everything that Spirit has ever learned about weapons and meisters and the necessary separation between them rises up in his head and up his throat with burning bile. He thought he was over his combat-nausea, believed he had fought that down through force of will and the need to be strong in front of Kami, but this goes far beyond standard-issue enemies. The idea of a weapon and meister sharing a single body, of having a separate entity inside his *blood* demanding motion and attention is appalling and terrifying in equal amounts. It is like staring down off a cliff or into a chasm, the very idea cripplingly frightening even as it calls like a dark siren.

Maka's voice chimes from behind him, high with youth and curious with innocence, and he's suddenly and immensely relieved that she hasn't considered the ramifications of the creature in front of them. "Professor Stein? Who are those two? Or what are they? I've never seen anything like this."

"That is the reason the academy was created," and Spirit doesn't have to see Stein's face to know his expression is cold and focused, distance in his voice speaking to his distaste for the thing in front of him, and that helps too, as it always did. Stein goes calm in the face of horror, turns into a ground for Spirit's emotions, and Spirit can swallow back his fright with that at his back.

"The reason the academy was created?" Maka's voice is soft, damp at the back with tears, but her attention is held by the topic and Spirit silently thanks Stein for drawing her into the moment, if only temporarily. "So does that mean he's a kishin?"

"Technically not yet. But he's only one step away from it."

Spirit doesn't hear Stein stand so much as he can sense the meister's approach, somewhere between his head and his senses and his anticipation. He imagines he can feel Stein's presence prickling over his skin before the meister speaks, and when the voice comes, calm and focused with intent, it reminds Spirit of his childhood. "Alright then. Let's take care of this, shall we?"

When Spirit turns to look at him, Stein's mouth is taut with a repressed smile and his glasses are clear and his green eyes are bright with anticipation and Spirit can't remember the last time a situation felt so *normal.* He can't help grinning, Kishin-egg or no, and when he says "Yeah" Stein mirrors him, the two of them smiling at each other in the moment before Spirit transforms back into scythe-form, and it feel for a moment like the last fourteen years never happened at all.

Stein's hands close around the handle of Spirit's scythe-form and the meister blooms into Spirit's head and Spirit can feel the icy focus on the enemy in front of them and the forming ache in Stein's palms and the ready tension in his legs.

"Spirit." His name, his *old* name, crackles in the air and ripples through Spirit's head like music, like all his failures never happened at all, like all that matters anymore is the enemy in front of them and Stein's hands steady on his weapon form. "Can you stand against the Demon Sword?"

"Of course I can," Spirit scoffs, not bothering to keep his thoughts inside his head since no one else can hear them anyway. "What do you think I am, some sort of rusty old dagger?"

There is a trickle of amusement sparkling like laughter inside Stein's head, and for all that this feels so comfortable that Spirit is only just realizing how much he missed it, his memory is offering the *last* time he fought with Stein and it is *so different* now. Stein's thoughts are smooth, steady and calm and peaceful, entirely focused on the impending fight. There's none of the painful, crushing agony that he remembers from their last fight, none of the want or the anger or the desperation that dragged him down under the surface of consciousness, just clean, sharp-edged focus. Like the early days.

"Been a long time, hasn't it?" He's not even sure what he means, exactly, because it has been a long time for everything, since they spoke, since they saw each other, since they worked together, since Stein was so calm and Spirit was so relaxed. He tries to clarify the details but the words won't come, and he ends up falling back on the easiest change to quantify. "Since we teamed up like this?"

That comes out softer than he intended, gentle and affectionate with nostalgia, and Stein *laughs,* the sound bubbling out into the air between them, and the spontaneity of the reaction startles Spirit so badly he almost doesn't catch what Stein actually says into the space between them. *We're not as young as we used to be, that's for sure.*

"Speak for yourself, I haven't aged a bit!" Spirit declares, although the difference in Stein's thoughts and the weight in his own backs up the truth, proves that *something* has changed. It would be easier if they could go back, though. Spirit wishes, very briefly but loudly enough that Stein must catch the thought, that it were possible, that they could go back to being teenagers again before everything fell apart. But then he thinks of Maka, curled over her hurt weapon partner by the door, and Spirit can't find it in him to wish that *anything* were different if it means Maka weren't here.

The sword-meister comes at them, wailing a response to something his weapon said while Spirit was distracted. It's not important. More interesting is his odd stance; he is leading with his shoulders, feet lagging far behind, and his balance is decent based on the weapon to which he is clinging, but the whole impression is that of a sword far too large for him, as if he is dragging the weight behind him rather than ready to use it. Spirit isn't sure he'll be able to swing the weapon at all.

Stein sets his feet, raises Spirit into a familiar two-handed grip, and when the meister *does* swing he blocks as smoothly as if all he has ever used is a scythe. He parries again, then once more, not flinching back or moving to attack, and it reads like utter competence but when did he learn this style of attack? Spirit has never fought defensively like this before, although it is easy to read Stein's movements and react accordingly, as easy as the first time they ever practiced together on the hillside outside Death City. The Sword catches on him and a *mouth* opens in it, shrieking in a frequency like fingernails against a chalkboard. It aches through Spirit's bones like a bass note too low to hear, but Stein takes part of the vibration and it dissipates to a tolerable buzz.

The meister draws back, swings again, but his body is canted precariously forward and Spirit swings under his thin body and pushes as Stein pulls. The boy's feet lift off the ground, suspended for a moment between Spirit and Stein both. He weighs almost nothing at all, all skin and bones and frightened eyes, and Stein flips him over and down without even bracing to take the extra weight. He has gotten *strong* in the intervening years. When Spirit last fought with him Stein had all his current height but was skinny with it, perpetually underfed from forgetfulness with angular wrists and cheekbones, and even though he wielded Spirit like he weighed nothing at all it took both his hands. Now he's blocking with Spirit in one hand and fighting with his other as if it's no great effort at all. He's not even breathing hard.

Stein drops to a knee and brings his left hand down hard into the meister's chest. Emotion statics through the presence that is Stein in Spirit's head, too-familiar guilt and carefully controlled violence and distant regret, and then Stein's hand crackles with tingling electricity. The sword-meister convulses under the forces, screams, and spits ink-black blood.

"Have another," Stein growls. The sound ripples out into recollection, flickering with tones from the years *before,* and Spirit can hear his first meister in the emotional overtone. It shivers through him, trailing mingled fear and nostalgia in its wake, and Spirit gasps for air like he's drowning.

The pain is distant but it breaks the moment, and Spirit is relieved in the breath before he realizes that it is Stein's pain he is feeling, the scream of nerve endings from broken skin. The violent pleasure evaporates from Stein's head, confusion sweeping in to take its place, and he twists to look at the cut along his ribcage, where a black spike has caught to tear through shirt and skin alike.

"What? That's the blood from the wound we gave him earlier." Stein's thoughts are speeding too fast for Spirit to follow, shuffling through possible explanations and discarding them as quickly as they appear. They settle for a moment, realization coiling around Stein's thoughts although Spirit doesn't follow *what* he has realized, and then the meister darts backward, as fast on his feet as Spirit remembers. His preternatural responses are the only thing that save them away from the burst of black spikes that perforate the air where they both were a moment ago.

"He's using every drop of his blood as a weapon." Spirit realizes, a step behind the thoughts flickering across the screen of Stein's mind. "But how is that even possible?"

"When souls are overhunted, a demon sword is created," Stein starts. It's his lecturing tone again, the explanation carefully loud for Maka's benefit. "We have to stop him here and now or he will definitely become a Kishin." He blinks behind his glasses and Spirit's weapon-form vision frosts with faint halos of borrowed sight from Stein's Soul Perception. "What's more, the balance of power between these two is uneven. The weapon's soul is clearly dominant. It rules over the meister's more introverted soul, confining it. For the moment, the meister still has some strength left to fight back against the weapon, but if he should be completely swallowed up, things will get dangerous."

*They're not now?* Spirit wonders, the tingle of pain from Stein's skin prickling over his own, but Stein is too focused to catch the half-repressed comment. His eyes narrow, staring at something too detailed for Spirit to glimpse.

"There's something else. I see a snake coiled around him, what's it doing there?"

*Is he possessed?* Spirit wonders. Stein doesn't answer exactly, but he flexes his fingers on the scythe handle, adjusting his grip in expectation of an attack, and his thoughts go still and silent.

The meister and the Sword are fighting again; Spirit doesn't need to see the wavelength to see which one is in charge. The meister looks like he's in some danger of getting taken over physically as well as mentally, and Spirit has a brief pang of sympathy for the kid. He really *is* just a kid, younger than Maka and looking like he could use a bowl of soup and a hug, and they're trying to *kill* him.

*Not now, Spirit,* Stein warns. *Take revenge on the cause. Don't lose your focus out of pity.*

*You *would* say that,* Spirit shoots back, stung because Stein is right, of course.

*And you *would* pity him.* It's affectionate with memory, the thought overlaid with so much emotion that Spirit only catches the top layer before it is gone. Stein physically shakes his head to clear the distraction of the conversation, and then he is bolting forward, crouched low to the ground and running on the balls of his feet, holding Spirit in front of him and leading with his left hand. There is a burst of black spikes in Spirit's periphery and Stein jerks away, pushes off the ground to shove them clear, and Spirit dips down to pull them both under another attack as they land.

The sword-meister is holding his weapon straight out in front of him like he's never used it before, arms visibly shaking with fear or the weight or both, and Stein sweeps Spirit up to shove the black blade to the left and away from them with a screech of metal-on-metal. The meister swings the weapon free, brings it back, and this time Stein blocks with the scythe-handle, the vibration of impact jolting through Spirit's not-bones like he's hitting a wall, but this is nothing compared to some fights, nothing at all with the steady calm of Stein's thoughts at the back of his head. Spirit feels like he's braced against his meister's wavelength, borrowing power from the confidence in Stein's stance and the angle of his shoulders and the support in his head, as if Stein is physically holding him steady with hands gripping his shoulders, and the momentum of the incoming attacks spends itself uselessly against the two of them. They aren't even struggling; Stein is holding Spirit one-handed, shifting as calmly as if he is walking rather than fighting, and Spirit is catching attacks as fast as the sword-meister offers them.

Spirit feels Stein's hand spark as clearly as if it's touching him, the electricity flickering across it warm instead of painful, and Stein growls "Soul Force" as his hand connects with the meister's chest. With Stein's full weight behind it the impact spins the boy around, and before he has time to fall to the ground the controlled burst of guilt and anger and hurt glows in Stein's head and shoves him backwards as hard as if Stein had thrown him bodily.

Another burst of black-blood-turned weapon spikes towards them and Stein dodges so fast Spirit's not sure they're really seeing so much as sensing now. Stein kicks off the last jump hard, swings forward with Spirit's scythe-weight to carry them down, and hits the ground hard with his left hand. A shove and their forward momentum brings them right-side up again, balanced together on Stein's feet.

"Time-lag attack,"Stein hisses, his voice stripped clear of new maturity and echoing clear down the years to childhood.

Spirit can't think of what to say when his old meister has apparently become a superhero in the intervening years. What has Stein been *doing* with himself?

"It's time to die, screw-head!" the Demon Sword screams, and Spirit notes that the weapon speaking directly to them is not at *all* a good sign for its meister's current mental state.

There is a jolt of pain from the original wound along Stein's side; he flinches, twists to glance at it, and that is when the attack comes, high and in front of them so Stein is turning into it when Spirit yells a wordless warning into his head. The meister ducks his head at the last minute, but there is a crackle of glass shattering and a splash of blood across the ground and for a moment Spirit's focus shatters in panicked concern.

There isn't even any pain coming from Stein. There is a heatbeat of silence, a drip of blood, and then a wave the raw bloodlust from their early fights together coupled with the deliberate decision to unleash it. Stein lifts his head and Spirit notes very distantly that he's okay, that he took the hit on his forehead and not his eyes, and then Stein grates out "I think I'd like to dissect you now."

Adult-Spirit cringes back, remembering the flood of violence filling his lungs with panic and the ache of faded scars and maturity screams "Danger," but child-Spirit recognizes that tone, flows towards it like water downhill, reaches out to turn the unleashed destruction towards a constructive route. An hour ago the present would have won out, the weight of those fourteen years as immovable as a wall, but Spirit's barriers are lost amid the shattered expectations of the stories he has been telling himself, and with nothing else to go on instinct wins out. The careless aggression demands attention, pulls him aware from his constant conscious awareness of his own personal failures. For the moment he is just Spirit, just Stein's weapon, and he has always been good at being that.


	8. Temporary

His forehead doesn't hurt, not the way that the still-bleeding injury in his side hurts. The cut opened too quickly for it to register as pain at first, and then his glasses broke and the opening in his skin let in the aggression he has been fighting back and Stein couldn't stop it if he wanted to. It is not his voice that speaks, that growls "I think I'd like to dissect you now," but the voice of his childhood, the untamed violence of himself before Spirit and before the screw and before he trained himself to hold something back.

It has been long, long years since he went so far under. It was satisfying to crush enemies with the heavy weight of Marie's hammer-form, but the pressure of his unforgettable loss held him back and down like it was a barrier to his emotions as much as to his sanity. He didn't realize that teaming up with Spirit again, that having Spirit in the back of his head, would leave him open to this flashback as much as the rest, but it's too late to call it back now because once his vision goes red-hazed he can't pull it back until the desire passes.

He is sure Spirit will jerk away. The knowledge is distant but certain, just as he knows he will regret this moment later. This is too new and asking too much of a man who has only just broken the silence of a decade and Spirit has *always* struggled with this and Stein has always gone too far, eventually, their separation is a testament to that. They may be partners for this fight but the quiet in Spirit's thoughts, the faintness of his emotions in Stein's head even tinged with bittersweet warmth as they are, says that things are *different* now, *temporary* now, and Stein should have gone slowly and he wants to reach for his screw but his hands are still tight around scythe-handle.

And then Spirit surges forward, pressing warm against the back of Stein's head for all that Stein can feel the murmur of unintelligible thoughts taunting him with their distance, and the nostalgic pleasure that sweeps from the weapon is so strong that Stein can taste it on his tongue like coffee, can feel it sweeping into his bones in place of marrow. The sensation entirely drowns out the screeching rejoinder the Demon Sword offers and is far more effective at pulling Stein back to rationality than he has ever been himself. But then Spirit always had that effect on him, back before Stein learned to fear abandonment.

"You ready?" he asks. It's not a question. He knows perfectly well, can feel Spirit's echoing anticipation of a *challenge* in the back of his head, catching off his own thrilling heartbeat and amplifying it like their soul wavelengths in Resonance, but he wants to hear Spirit's voice in his head, wants to recreate their old fights in this too.

Spirit grins. Stein can feel the expression curve his face and can see the shine off white teeth as if Spirit is next to him, as if Spirit's hand is on his shoulder and his mouth is beside his ear, and it's not quite the same as feeling the emotion bleeding directly into him like when they were young but it is more than he ever expected from this fight and more than he has had in years. *Yep.*

Stein doesn't have to think about his body when he moves to attack. It doesn't make any sense at all, his desire shouldn't be able to override muscle memory and his palms are blistering from the unfamiliar friction of the scythe-handle and he hasn't wielded anything like a scythe since his last fight with Spirit, and even now he isn't moving like he moved then; he is taller and the scythe is lighter and his shoulders are broader and Spirit himself is a little bit bigger, his blade a little sharper than it was with the addition of a witch's soul, and Stein should be *struggling* with this by any reasonable estimation. It doesn't matter. His feet shift under him and his hands pull the weight of Spirit's weapon-form in one direction while he moves in the other and his soul wavelength reaches out like he's extending a hand and runs up against Spirit's, curling into each other like they are interlocking their fingers. When Stein blinks he can see Spirit's vision overlaid against his, can feel Spirit's weapon-form body shifting like a second skin over his. It's impossible to lose track of himself; there is a discomfort in Spirit's shared body, like it doesn't quite fit him the way it used to when they bled into a single person sharing breath and bodies and minds, but Stein stutter-breathes and their inhalations fall into sync and that is enough for now.

"Spirit Body," Stein's mouth is saying for him, and he blinks into Soul Perception in time to see his and Spirit's shared wavelength flood out past their physical forms and thicken the air around them to deflect the black spikes coming inward. It's covered with stitches, patched together as his wavelength never was when he was young, but it's glowing golden at the edges like he never managed on his own either, like it's filled with light and warmth and life. Spirit's borrowed senses are flaring hot in his head, tingling almost painfully against his own skin with the unfamiliarity the weapon is enforcing, but the connection is still so comforting that it's not even hard to relax enough to let go as he sticks the scythe-handle into the ground before the church.

*Stay here.*

Spirit doesn't answer aloud, and Stein is already off, running all-out towards the sword-meister and the Demon Sword he is wielding while Spirit's borrowed warmth clings to his hair and blood and bones. Stein kicks off from the ground hard, propels himself into the air just as the Sword's head turns, trying to track his movement. Then he's twisting and can't see the enemy anymore, but he can sense the wavelength in front of and underneath him, and when his foot comes down it connects solidly with skull.

The meister stumbles backward, taking the Sword with it, and while the Sword is still speaking clearly the meister's voice is coming thin and wavery with dizziness. It's a testament to the strength granted by his internalized weapon that he is standing at all; that kick would have taken down any one of the Academy students Stein has met so far.

Unluckily for the surprisingly tenacious meister, there isn't going to be time for him to make a full recovery. Stein lets memory sweep into his cooling veins, blue eyes and red hair and damp cheeks and unbearable guilt filling his head. His palms spark hot with recollection and Spirit and he throws himself forward, leading with his wavelength.

"Double palm Soul Force," he recites as it hits the meister. "Twin speed."

The unified pair flies backward, the Sword clutching his head with gloved hands for an instant before he dissolves in a spray of black mist. The meister, left to his own devices now, bounces limply, hitting the ground with enough force that Stein is sure he would hear the crunch of fragile bones were it not drowned out by screams.

Stein steps back, exhales carefully. The croon of destruction fades to silence and his body is his again just in time to hear Maka's voice panicked with worry from behind him. "Bloody needles again?"

Stein turns back to the church door even before the sound of blood splashing wet and harmless on the ground registers. It was possible to let Spirit go knowing he'd come back, but now the enemy is handled and the end of their temporary partnership is in sight and he needs the comfort of Spirit in his head, just for a minute, just briefly before he goes back to his looping memories and the demands of his insanity. His hand closes around the black handle, and those *are* blisters, they might be bleeding across his right hand, but the pain is entirely lost under the influx of Spirit's senses on his mental horizon and Spirit's satisfaction in their victory and Spirit's wordless sigh of relief. He angles the scythe across his shoulders, wanting irrationally to have the weight pressing against him while he can.

"No." He finally answers Maka. "It's over now. I hate to say it, but you're finished." That to the meister, still and silent on the ground in front of them.

No sooner does he speak than the boy screams, wailing in agony like Stein has never heard before. He coughs, chokes up the snake-wavelength Stein saw wrapped around him earlier, and his body morphs into shifting spikes, pushing him away from the ground in what must be a deeply painful process to judge from the accompanying shrieks.

It looks worse with Soul Perception. His soul wavelength is being forcibly ripped apart, raw at the edges and all but bleeding from the trauma. Stein can't make himself look away, and although he's not quite horrified by the visuals himself Spirit is catching the edge of them and all of the physical reaction, and Spirit's appalled response is easy enough to see in the image clear in the back of Stein's head.

*What's happening to him?* The shock is audible in Spirit's voice, the more so because it pours directly into Stein's head with its accompanying emotional content.

Stein responds out loud for Maka's benefit; she is staring at the boy, horrified sympathy bleeding off her in rippling sheets, and she's *probably* not seeing all the detail that he's getting but she's seeing enough. "He's going through soul rejection."

"Their soul wavelengths were united, but they're falling apart now," she observes, and even with the emotional afterimages of combat in his head and the radiating clarity of Spirit dominating his thoughts Stein is impressed with her insight, with her ability to speak at all instead of bursting into tears, and for a moment he and Spirit's thoughts echo each other as perfectly as their breath.

It is only for a moment before *something* emerges overhead, a wavelength rippling out into the sky so strongly that Stein can feel it like a physical weight. He looks up at the same time Maka does, her voice underscoring their actions. "It's another soul! I don't know where it came from, but I can sense it!"

"I feel it too." Stein says, looking up at the night sky without blinking. He knows what that is, although Maka's never seen one before. "It's a witch." He brings Spirit down and around, wraps his aching left hand around the handle for the extra stability. He's going to need it for this confrontation.

*A witch, huh?* Spirit's voice is steady, which is somewhat impressive and also likely due to the fact that he's not entirely seeing the impromptu eclipse the witch's soul is causing to Stein's eyes.

"Yes, and one with a strong soul. Very powerful." He is understating the case. Stein has never seen *anyone* with a soul wavelength that powerful outside of Lord Death. "My guess is she's the one who put that weapon inside the kid's body too."

"That's a witch up there?" Maka's voice is shaking audibly. "But how? I should have *felt* a soul like that before now. She's incredibly strong."

Stein keeps his voice level for Maka's benefit. The witch will have to go through him and Spirit before it gets to Maka and her weapon, and he thinks they *might* be able to stop her. "Soul Protect."

He knows she'll ask before she does. The offer of information is too tempting for her to pass up even in the midst of crippling panic. "What is that?"

The witch isn't moving, remaining still in the sky and just watching them. Stein doesn't shift his weight out of combat-readiness, but he lets his brain recite back the text from the books he read at the Academy, alert with insomnia while Spirit slept in the next room. "It's advanced magic, not all witches can use it. The technique encloses the area around the soul with magic. This blocks the soul's wavelength. The witch is camouflaged and her soul appears to be that of a normal human."

Maka murmurs something behind them, but it is quiet enough that Stein ignores it. The witch is moving, although at this distance he can't tell *what* exactly she's doing, and the uncertainty makes him edgy. It is only for a moment, though; the black arrows that erupt into existence around her answer his curiosity as they spike downward directly towards himself and Spirit.

Stein sets his feet, rocks forward, and Spirit is reaching out towards his wavelength before he thinks anything at all, both of them grinning in anticipation. They meet in the middle, and Spirit shouts "Let's go Soul Resonance!" just as Stein does, so Spirit's voice in Stein's head sounds like the internal echo of the meister's own vocal chords.

When Stein blinks his vision is overlaid with a second perspective, his skin feels faintly metallic, his satisfied delight is spiraling high with constructive interference and they can do *anything,* they have always been able to anything when they are together. He pulls the knowledge of Witch Hunter from Spirit's head, borrows the information on stance and angle and attack from the weapon's memories, and when he spins the scythe's handle it is as feather-light as if someone else is helping to take the weight already lessened by their passive resonance.

The arrows close with them, angling sharply towards his face, but they are already moving together, Spirit slashing sideways so quickly that Stein doesn't have time to consciously move the weapon, barely has a chance to instinctively pull back, and the arrows evaporate, sliced cleanly through by a cut that leaves a glowing gold afterimage across Stein's vision.

*Were those *stitches*?* Spirit asks in the back of Stein's head, and Stein isn't sure he was supposed to hear that or that the question is anything but rhetorical, but the tone is affectionate and amused and he could listen to Spirit talk like that all day.

*Not a usual addition?* he asks, and Spirit laughs and Stein's bones hum with the vibration.

Another black shape forms across the sky. Stein braces for another attack, but it curves into a snake instead of an arrow and swings down to collect the flailing meister in its mouth. The voice that follows is familiar but Stein can't quite place it.

"I just dropped by on a little errand. Who would have thought I'd run into the DWMA's legendary meister, and Death Scythe too, what an unexpected pleasure."

*Academy.* Stein's head notes.

*Probably not our classmate,* Spirit offers immediately, as quick to respond as Stein. *Since she calls me Death Scythe.*

"I would love to stay and play with you kids a little longer, but I'm afraid I can't." Her voice is honey-sweet, caressing in a way that Stein identifies as seductive at some distant remove of his brain. "Perhaps we can all play another time."

Spirit half-transforms as the witch carries the sword-meister away, wavelength pulsing with his particular variety of hot-flaring short-lived anger. "Hold it lady!"

"No, it's okay," Stein soothes, and Spirit's temper settles almost instantly at the words. "Let's leave her for now." Although there is nothing he would like more than to tear a witch to shreds with his bare hands and Spirit, he has managed to learn some restraint and a modicum of patience in the last years. And they were sent here on a mission. "I'm more worried about Soul."

There isn't much that Stein can do to help until they get the younger scythe back to the Academy, but the focus helps take his mind off the ringing emptiness left in his thoughts when Spirit transforms back into his human form and tears all the clarity out of Stein's head. He tells himself that he'll save the boy, that if he can save Maka's weapon partner it will somehow make up for the things he has done to his own, and doesn't think about the fact that he hasn't turned the screw since he found Spirit at the Academy.


	9. Light

Spirit had intended to catch Maka if he could, sit with her while she waited for Soul to come out of surgery, maybe talk to her if she wanted or hug her if she wanted or just exist with her if she didn't want him to speak or touch her. But reporting to Lord Death takes longer than he'd hoped, and Stein is faster about the operation than he expected, and when he rounds the corner to the infirmary Maka is on her feet and Stein is just outside the infirmary door looking down at her.

Spirit can't quite make out what they're saying at first, but he can see the stiff curve of Stein's back and the anxious way Maka is shifting her feet. If the news is bad, he wants to be there to buffer her; Stein is possibly the last person who ought to be left to break bad news to anyone, much less a child, much less *Spirit's* daughter.

Maka's back is to Spirit, and she either doesn't hear him coming or entirely ignores the sound of footsteps, but Stein's eyes flick up to Spirit for just a moment before he looks back down at the girl in front of him. Even at the distance Spirit can see his expression flirt with panic, go blank with indecision, and then his face breaks into a smile that is warm and friendly and reassuring and hands-down the most insincere thing Spirit has ever seen on his face.

The meister promptly compounds the effect by making a *peace sign,* of all things, and Spirit comes into earshot just in time to catch "The operation was a complete success. Once he rests up a little bit he'll be as good as new." The words are comforting, kind and warm and enthusiastic and Spirit recognizes his *own* vocal mannerisms in them. It sounds nothing like Stein to anyone who knows him, but Maka lacks Spirit's experience with the doctor. Spirit can see her shoulders slump in relief, hear her mumble something he doesn't quite catch, and then she *reaches out* to take Stein's hands between her own.

Spirit flinches. *No one* touches Stein, not casually like that. It was years of partnership before Spirit could manage to brush the meister's shoulder without Stein jerking backward and looking like he'd been shocked; handshakes were always a conscious, visible effort of will, and anything like as intimate as what Maka is doing is entirely out of the question. Spirit's skin prickles with remembered shock echoing down through the years, and he can hear Stein's voice before it went smoke-rough hissing "Don't *touch* me" as if Stein-as-he-was is right next to him. But Stein-as-he-is isn't pulling away, although his eyes flicker back to Spirit's and his hands are entirely limp with uncertainty, and Maka is trilling, "Thank you so much, Professor!" and appears entirely unaware of what she is doing.

Spirit realizes that Maka's voice is cloudy in spite of the relief in her tone, that she is or was on the verge of tears and probably in no kind of a state to notice the social awkwardness that is pouring off Stein, and Stein doesn't seem to be planning to react to the contact at all, and some of the panic cast over Spirit's thoughts fades.

Stein looks back at Maka's face, responds to something Spirit is still not quite catching, but he hears the next question from her as he draws nearly even with them. "Would it be alright if I went in to check on him now?"

Stein smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. Spirit *knows* what Stein's smile looks like; it's sharp and lopsided and saturated with the promise of blood and violence and death. This is not that smile, and he's a little relieved that Maka's not seeing the actual thing but mostly worried about what the false cheer means for her weapon partner.

"Sure. That'll be fine," Stein says in Spirit's inflection, and Maka says "Thank you," without looking away from the door before she releases his hands and darts inside.

Spirit steps forward and leans against the wall, a safe corridor-distance away from the meister. Through the open door he can see Maka pad across the room towards Soul's bed; Stein's head is turned, watching her go, and Spirit waits until Maka is across the room and out of earshot before he speaks, low and edged with irritation.

"That's a nice fake smile you're wearing."

Stein looks back at him and the smile evaporates. It's a relief to see the mask go, even though without it his eyes are dark with whatever knowledge he's keeping to himself. He looks away from Spirit's face, down the empty hallway like there's something there to see other than the glow of the setting sun. Silence spreads out between them while he sorts through his pockets in search of something.

Spirit stands the tension for about two seconds before he caves. Patience has never been a very strong trait of his. "What are you looking for?"

"Matches." Stein tries his back pocket for the third time. Spirit refrains from rolling his eyes with what he feels is impressive restraint, reaches into the pocket of his jacket for his lighter before he steps forward.

"Here."

It's frustrating to watch Stein look for matches he is clearly never going to find, and Spirit does like to be helpful when he can, but there's more to it, something composed of the slant to Stein's shoulders and the worry under his voice and the shadow in his eyes, all wrapped up with satisfaction at taking care of the meister again, even in a small way. Stein almost jumps away at Spirit's sudden proximity, and *that's* the meister Spirit remembers, cringing back from the possibility of accidental contact before he sees what Spirit is offering. His eyes flicker up to Spirit's face, his mouth twists in repressed amusement, and he reaches out to take it. He's not careful about the movement; his hand brushes against Spirit's fingers and Spirit pulls away, more surprised than Stein.

Stein looks away while he fishes a cigarette out of the pocket of his coat, but his shoulders are set with careful intention and Spirit can almost *hear* Stein laughing at his startled reaction. He retreats to the wall, clears his throat in an attempt to break the growing silence.

"When did you start smoking?" He meant for it to be a conversation starter but it comes out aggressive and angry, like he's accusing Stein of something awful.

Stein glances at him and when he blinks Spirit feels like he's missing some crucial piece of information. Then he looks back down, sets the cigarette against his lips, and when he speaks the sound is half-muffled by the obstruction. "When did you *stop*?"

That is *not* an answer but it sounds like it's supposed to be. It's not like Spirit really cares about the subject so he lets it drop, circles back to the major question and fights off the nicotine craving urging him to ask Stein for a cigarette. He watches the flicker of the flame light up Stein's face, watches Stein's eyes track the movement of the illumination as it catches.

"So tell *me* what you wouldn't tell Maka." It's not a question. It's not really a command. It's just that Spirit knows that Stein will tell him, will tell him even if he doesn't say anything at all. The words are just to fill the time between the sound of Stein's voice. "What is Soul's condition really?"

Stein inhales the smoke, reaches up to pull his cigarette away from his lips, exhales slowly. He doesn't look at Spirit and Spirit doesn't look away from him, just leans into the wall and waits. Apparently he has more patience than he thought, at least on this subject.

Finally Stein speaks, talking down the hallway rather than across it. "The wound itself is alright after surgery. That much I can say at least. But there is still something that bothers me." Spirit can hear the focus in his voice, the faint irritation at a puzzle that he can't quite make sense of.

"Go on," he prods gently when Stein seems to be losing himself in the smoke in front of his face again.

Stein sighs. "I'm not exactly certain, but it might be a curse."

"A curse? What kind of curse is it?" Spirit looks away from Stein, past into the infirmary where he can just see Maka bent over the motionless form of her weapon. "Will he be alright." He meant it as a question, that time, but worry pulls his voice flat like Stein's before he finishes the sentence.

Stein still doesn't look at him. His shoulders are hunched forward like he's trying to protect himself from an expected blow; Spirit feels like he can see the shape of the meister's student-self traced out underneath that curved back.

"The Demon Sword Ragnarok has black blood. Some of it appears to have gotten mixed into Soul's blood." Stein sounds calm, forcibly so, but his words are weighted with foreboding that Spirit can feel echoed in his own rising worry. "I can't say for sure how it will affect him, but I doubt it will be good."

There is nothing Spirit can really say to that. Stein offers him the lighter back, turned upward like he's holding a flower, turns his head to look at Spirit directly. It is a long minute before Spirit reaches out to close his fingers around the silver lighter and slides it into his pocket. They don't touch - Spirit is careful to avoid inadvertent contact - but Stein doesn't look away and Spirit can't break eye contact either. Seconds approach a minute as green eyes pull up memories Spirit had nearly forgotten, the heat of desire and hate tangled together in his meister's head and all aimed at him, and he starts to flush red, would look away if he could find it in him to break the weight of their stare. Stein inhales against his cigarette again, exhales a cloud of smoke, and finally looks down and away, but Spirit can see his lips curve awkward and stiff and real before he says "Thanks," into the space between them.


	10. Determination

Stein nearly runs into Maka as they round the same corner of the Academy headed in opposite directions. She jumps backwards, stumbles and almost falls, and he stops dead and rocks back on his heels. For a moment they stare at each other blankly; Maka is breathing hard like she's been running, and her recovering weapon is nowhere to be seen. Stein tips his head into the light without thinking, hiding behind reflective lenses, and the years of practicing normal conversation take over his throat without conscious thought.

"Oh. Hey Maka."

"Professor Stein!" She is still startled, still coming down from the flush of panic from their near collision, but her eyes have refocused on whatever she was thinking of originally. She is just as easy to read as Spirit is, emotions painted all across her face like a tapestry. The resemblance makes Stein smile without thinking. "There's a witch in the city! I felt the wavelength from my apartment, we have to stop her!"

"Yes," he agrees. "Two, actually."

"We have to find them before they escape!" she demands, her hands fisting at her sides. She looks ridiculous, like a kitten about to pick a fight with a lion, but the determination in her eyes is impressive in spite of its unreasonable aggression. Stein's mind flickers backwards, for once not offering images of Spirit but this time of the current Academy students, Maka and Soul and Black*Star and Tsubaki, and his own words stripped of the resonance of his head, sounding like a stranger as he remembers them from a distance: "I may have underestimated those kids."

"Come on," he says instead of telling her to go home, to stay safe where Spirit would want her. "We should hurry."

He leads the way, jogging instead of running in consideration of her shorter stride, but she paces him as if her determination is enough to make up for any quantity of physical exhaustion. Of course she is running towards the witches' wavelengths, not away from them, so she is already deliberately crushing past the fear of the last time she saw a witch. Possibly her determination *can* affect more than the obvious.

*Impressive,* Stein's head notes at a distance. *Very impressive.*

They make good time through the city, between Stein's long strides and Maka's stoic, churning run, but one of the two witch wavelengths flickers out before they arrive, and as they come in sight of the alley itself the other veers off in the other direction.

There is still one wavelength left, though. Human, nonthreatening, but one of those souls disappeared before they arrived, and the second witch fled before she could possibly have heard Stein and Maka's approach.

*Human…* Stein's hand flexes in his pocket, trying to find traction on something that isn't there rather than the screw in his head, and the evidence aligns into an explanation. *Or Soul Protected.*

He slows as they turn down the alley, as narrow as an Academy corridor and papered over with torn posters for long-ago concerts and charity events. Maka's faster footsteps patter behind him and in front of him...ah. Yes. Medusa.

"Are you alright, Doctor Medusa?" Maka is genuinely concerned, her assumptions grounded too firmly to even be questioned under the circumstances. And she didn't see the Protected soul wavelength hovering in the sky in Italy.

Stein's fingers shift, dig into his palm like they is generating the rapid-fire logic in his head in lieu of the screw's jumbled rearrangement. *Maka present. No weapons. Do not engage.*

"We detected two witches in this area and came as quickly as we could," he offers. Strict truth is easier than lying, especially when it suits his purposes as well as the latter.

"Yes," Medusa says without turning. Her voice skips high, just for a breath. Stein is sure Maka doesn't hear the inflection, wouldn't catch it himself if he weren't listening for a break. "I sensed them too and came here to investigate myself."

*Bad story. She's not ready to back up her presence. Why would a school nurse come out to investigate witches with no back up? And how did she sense them? Is she claiming to have Soul Perception too?*

"I wonder if one of them could have been the witch that was there when Soul was injured!" Maka thinks aloud. She truly has no suspicions at all, although her circling attention to her partner is charming. Stein can understand the need for revenge, although he hasn't ever turned his own on anyone but himself.

"That is a possibility."

*Liar.* The word is too short to be sure, but it doesn't sound like Stein's inner voice anymore, has the high pitch of Spirit instead, and Stein responds to back it up as quickly as if Spirit were actually there and speaking.

"No, I don't think it's the same one." Maka turns to look at him, eyes wide with surprise. Medusa doesn't turn at all. He doesn't know what expression she is making, but the lack of reaction is just as telling as a grimace. She lacks subtlety. "For one thing, that witch had the Demon Sword and its meister along with her, and even if she were here I doubt we would have sensed her at all." He doesn't need to go on, but the understanding is flooding into his brain and he seems to be adopting some of Spirit's recklessness from sheer sustained proximity in the City and this is amusing in the way that his first fights were, before he discovered how to be burdened by everything else. He can remember how to smile, a tiny curve that Maka won't notice and Medusa will barely see. "I have a feeling this one is too cunning to release her Protect in the middle of Death City without reason. One thing we do know is this witch has an interest in weapons and meisters, so I wouldn't be surprised if she were in the area, observing the students here. But I have no doubt that she would want to do it quietly."

Maka is gazing at him with that particularly rapt expression upon receiving new knowledge that is all her own, with nothing of either parent in it. She looks like he reading back the chapter to a fascinating novel, hanging on his every word like he is remaking the world into his perception just by talking. It's heady to have someone gazing at him like he is *responsible,* like he is an *adult,* but the Spirit in Stein's head is whimpering at the ramifications and Stein has to agree that he is not a particularly good role model for anyone, including and especially himself.

"Yes, I suppose it's even possible that she has managed to infiltrate the Academy itself." Almost too much, too close to an accusation. Medusa doesn't want to fight or both he and Maka would be defending their lives, but too close to the mark and he may change her mind anyway. *Retreat.* Stein angles his head towards Medusa, curves his mouth in an approximation of a smile. "But that would be tricky even for a powerful witch." *Again.* "Whatever the case, it's a relief that you weren't hurt by these witches, Doctor Medusa. We would be in some serious trouble if something happened to our *only* school nurse."

The emphasis is slight. Maka shouldn't notice it without any suspicion to heighten her attention, but Medusa's eyes are sharp on Stein's own lab coat and the implications it carries. She isn't quite glaring at him over Maka's head, but her chin is down and her eyes are taking in all of him. Stein's not worried, not yet. She won't attack here and she's not going to find his weakness that easily, not when he's spent years cultivating a cover for it. If he can fool Spirit while Resonating, with the weapon in his head and his heart stuttering in his chest, he can fool her.

"Thanks, but I'm fine." Almost too sharp, so edged Maka could notice something. Then the young meister speaks and Stein realizes that she is entirely lost to the scenario's details.

"But still...if I…" Her head is hanging, her voice soft and fading out as she forgets her audience. "Ever see that sword and its meister again…"

She goes fully quiet. Her shoulders slump forward under her pink sweater, stripping years off her age so she just looks like a little girl instead of the determined meister Stein knows her to be. He doesn't have to read her soul wavelength to know what she's thinking. He recognizes the look of a meister panicked for her weapon.

He also recognizes the approaching soul wavelength, but doesn't say anything. It'll be better if Soul does his own talking.

"Maka!" The weapon comes up the alley, running faster than Maka managed. It speaks to his full recovery, at least physically. "Are you alright, Maka?" He is as worried as the meister, concern rippling out into his words and his motions. He keeps coming, although his pace slows as he sees Maka at least on her feet. "You shouldn't take off on your own, it's too dangerous."

"I'm fine, Soul." It is almost angry, but Maka is less good at covering her emotions with aggression than Stein was as a student, and the almost-tears underneath are audible to Stein. He's not sure if Soul hears them too or is just used to his meister, but either way the weapon doesn't appear particularly fazed.

Maka raises her head to stare at Soul. The weapon looks perplexed, hums a question, but doesn't pull away, even when she reaches to press her hand over his heart.

Stein's fingers clench into fists, his vision shifts to daylit memories, and for a minute Maka and Soul are overlaid with silver hair and red, shifting features and a different setting.

"You have to tell me what's going on," Soul says, voice gentle, and that's not the voice that Stein expected but it shifts in his head towards his guilt-laced nostalgia. *You have to tell me what's going on,* Spirit's voice echoes off his head, reverberating with unfamiliar tonalities and words Spirit has never said himself. *You stoic scythe-meisters, I swear.*

Maka turns to look at Stein and Soul follows her gaze, as if she has said something to explain her behavior. Stein admires the weapon for his dedication, even without any sort of reasonable explanation for his meister's behavior, for his willingness to follow wherever she leads.

"Alright, Professor Stein."

He doesn't know exactly what she is going to say, but he knows enough of it that it colors his voice with pleasure when he answers, going through the motions of not-knowing. "Yes?"

She steps forward, aggressive with her decision, face fixed in the same determination from the Academy. It looks less foolish this time. "I know. What I'm lacking now." He doesn't answer and she goes on. "You told me to figure it out and I have."

Whatever else he may do, whether the hope of regaining Spirit sparkling in his blood turns into anything or not, no matter what else he may go on to destroy or who else he ends up hurting, this is a success. His glasses reflect to cover the genuine light in his eyes this time, his smile goes soft with sincerity. "Very good." *At last. Maka's finally found the courage to fight her fear. She and Soul may make a partnership yet.* That in his voice, the next in Spirit's. *And she won't make the mistakes you did.*

Maka's eyes are steady, colored with determination so strong it is nearly violent, looking like she is ready to walk through walls to do whatever he asks of her. That is good. It might be enough.

"In that case, I'd like you and Soul to come to my office tomorrow for a special lesson."

*She won't like it.* Spirit. *She doesn't have to.* Him. *As long as it works.*


	11. Casual

Death City is very beautiful by night, at least from the tiny balcony attached to Spirit's apartment a few blocks away from the Academy. Of course that might be the sleep deprivation of the last few days, or the sustained pleasure at Maka's success lifting his mood, but regardless of the cause the lights seem very bright and the world seems very hopeful and even thinking of Maka's continuing cold shoulder towards him can't bring his mood down tonight.

"I'll bet Maka's enjoying her present right now," he murmurs. It's a bad habit he's fallen into, talking to himself out loud, but since Kami left and Maka began avoiding and ignoring him the only time he regularly hears a voice is when it's his own, and the white noise of his narrated thoughts helps to block out the darkness of loneliness when it attempts to creep in. "Maka," he tries again, rolling the vowels over his tongue and appreciating the way they form visibly in the cooling night air.

"Congratulations."

The voice is so unexpected that it takes Spirit a minute to realize that it isn't him speaking, to locate the speaker, and then to identify the voice. Stein is standing in the street under the balcony and looking up at Spirit. He looks like he's been there for several minutes. He might actually have been. Spirit doesn't usually have cause to look down.

"Stein!" The name lacks the emotional panic of their first meeting. If this is another side effect of the sake he had at ChupaCabra's or the lack of sleep over the last few days, Spirit will take it happily. He waves in what is more of a flail of enthusiasm that a restrained gesture. "Did you hear the good news?"

Stein inhales off his cigarette, the end glowing bright as the streetlamps for a moment. "I did. Given that I graded the exams, I suspect I knew before Maka herself." His mouth turns up into a barely-there smile. "Hence the congratulations."

Spirit is hanging over the railing, more drunk on enthusiasm than on alcohol, and his pleasure at talking to another human outweighs the awkward possibilities of Stein being said human. "I knew she would. She's a genius." His words are going soft and sentimental, but Stein is just watching him, that novel smile lingering at the corner of his lips, and the whole night is bright and crystalline with temporary perfection. "You should come up. We can have a drink to celebrate."

Stein's smile stays but the amusement in his eyes flickers out, just for a minute, and he looks away and down at the street while he takes another drag off his cigarette. The silence stretches long and if it were another night Spirit would retract the offer or withdraw from rising nerves, but his veins are singing with just enough sake to warm him and he is *happy*, happy straight through for the first time in months and years, and he stays where he is, balanced somewhat precariously over the railing rather than behind it.

Stein glances up at him, sees him still waiting. The meister tips his head to one side, the angle sharply reminiscent of their student days, and then reaches up to turn the screw that extends past his silvery hair. The sound it makes is startlingly loud, the click of gears settling into place echoes off the alley, but then he finishes his cigarette and drops it to crush out the last of the ember beneath his shoe.

"Yeah, okay."

Spirit grins without meaning to, the muscles of his face moving as they used to so they touch his mouth, his cheeks, his eyes instead of staying chained to just his lips. "I'll come around to let you in."

Stein is standing with his back to the door when Spirit opens it, staring out like there's something to see in the darkened street, and Spirit has to actually say his name before he turns.

"Stein."

Stein's shoulders shift under the line of his lab coat, his breath mists hot against the cool air, but when he turns he looks almost entirely calm. There is a flicker at the back of his eyes, their reflective shield gone with the loss of the sunlight, but it is gone as soon as Spirit sees it and then he is smiling like he does now, the expression settling into his face in a way that makes him look *normal* and that Spirit has never seen before.

"Thanks," and he is following Spirit into the narrow entry hall of the apartment. There is a voice in the back of Spirit's head pointing out that this is *odd*. Shouldn't there be more adjustment than this? This *is* the meister who cut him open without his knowledge or consent, who gave him the array of razor-straight scars across his chest and stomach and the starburst tangle over his heart. They have only just broken fourteen years of silence, after all. This should be *harder*, more complicated, and aren't there things they should talk about, stale confrontations to dig up? But it's easy to recognize the tip of Stein's head and the sound of his childhood voice under the faint scratch of smoke, and it doesn't make any sense that it should be this easy, not without resolution, but it *is*. They were able to Resonate, after all, dropped back into partnership like they had never stopped, and rationality doesn't like that explanation but fighting it seems like a waste of effort right now, like pushing away the one good thing to happen to Spirit in years, and his masochism is on holiday tonight.

Stein doesn't move to sit after Spirit leads him into the edge of the living room, just stands at the edge of the living room with his hands in his pockets looking around him like there is more to see than the small apartment and a few furnishings. Spirit leaves him there for a moment to retrieve more sake and a pair of cups, and when he comes back he jerks his chin in the direction of the couch.

"Sit. I won't be able to relax if you're standing there the whole time."

Stein smiles again - those are coming easy, much more easily than Spirit remembers - and settles into the seat indicated. After a moment he extricates his hands and leans forward on his knees, reaches out to touch the edge of the coffee table in front of him. From the expression on his face Spirit is fairly sure he's not doing so deliberately.

Spirit fills the cups, sits in the chair across the table from the meister, offers him one with a declaration, "To Maka!" Stein accepts, lifts it in a half-formed toast, and follows Spirit's example in drinking.

Spirit sets the cup back on the table, leans back in the chair half-sideways so he can hook one leg over the arm and lean out over the other. "She's going to be a great meister," he murmurs, dropping back into the habit of talking to himself without really thinking about it.

"She has a lot of potential," Stein concurs. He is watching Spirit so intently that the weapon gazes up at the ceiling instead of meeting that gaze. There is too much possible panic there, too much that he should be thinking about and has been avoiding, and he doesn't really want to confront the insight into Stein's head that he received during their years-old fight. He's gone this long avoiding it, there's no particular reason he should break down now.

The quiet stretches out again. It would be awkward if Spirit were less comfortable or less tired, but his angled pose across the chair is soothing and the sound of someone else breathing is far more pleasant than he expected it would be, and the days of minimal sleep are catching up with him. He shuts his eyes and that helps, a little, and although his thoughts start wandering it doesn't feel like it's a problem just at the moment.

"When did you last sleep?" Stein asks. It's not a condemnation in his monotone, just a question. Spirit smiles with an edge of self-deprecation.

"I passed out for a few hours this morning after the test results were posted, but it's been a few days now." He yawns, stretches. "I was sending Maka positive energy."

"I know." The words are amused and soft. "Guess it worked."

"Nah." Spirit sighs. "She did it on her own. She's strong that way. I wish she needed me more. It would be nice to be important, you know? But I'm proud of her for doing so well by herself." He shakes his head absently. "She's amazing."

Spirit twists sideways so he's almost lying across the chair, opens his eyes. Stein has leaned back against the couch, looking almost relaxed, and his head is tipped to the side again like he's tracking Spirit's face, turning as the weapon turns. Spirit smiles at him.

"Thanks."

Stein raises an eyebrow. "What for?"

"For listening. It's been a while since someone was willing to listen to me babble."

Stein laughs, a lopsided smirk catching the edge of his mouth. There is something in his eyes that Spirit can't quite name but recognizes; it plugs directly into his nostalgia without any stop-off at adulthood or awkward history or recent concerns. "Carry on."

Spirit echoes the meister's laugh, shuts his eyes again. "I'm glad you're back." He hadn't consciously decided to say that, hadn't even quite realized it was true until he hears the words in his own head, but he is smiling against the fabric pressing into his cheek and it is true, so he lets the statement stand.

Stein inhales, pauses. There is a beat before he speaks. "Me too." The words catch oddly, like they're sticking in his throat, but when Spirit opens his eyes Stein looks perfectly calm in spite of that continued considering gaze.

Spirit sits up with a monumental force of will, swinging his legs back into a more typical orientation, and reaches for the sake. "Another?"

Stein offers up his empty glass, holding it perfectly steady while Spirit pours with somewhat less grace, spilling against his fingers when he goes for his own.

"To partners!" he offers this time, and Stein smiles that soft smile again and accepts the toast.

"To partners."

They make it through the rest of the bottle of sake, although by the end Spirit's not sure what he's talking about, somewhere between half-asleep and tipsy on the alcohol. Stein keeps smiling, though; by the time they finish he is nursing amusement as much as the sake in his hand.

When Spirit runs out of words and coherency, Stein lets the quiet stretch. The empty bottle makes the silence heavier with half-formed questions and awkward expectation until the meister stands, replacing his hands in his pockets for safekeeping.

"I should go. You look like you could do with some proper sleep."

Spirit rolls his eyes. "Thanks a lot. That's definitely the way to flatter your way back into my heart, you know."

He didn't mean to say that either. The flirtatious teasing comes too easy to his tired lips and he has lost track of who he is talking to and the history that goes along with them both, and the regret hits him just before Stein smiles as if it's nothing at all.

"I had forgotten how delicate your ego is, Spirit."

He had forgotten this too, the easy amusement since their reconciliation tuning in to the very early days of their partnership, the way Stein makes his name sound like a taunt and a diminutive at once. The tension seeps out of his spine into the chair and he smiles up at the meister.

"Oh yes. I am extraordinarily fragile."

Stein takes a breath and for just a minute his face fractures into confusion and doubt before it realigns to determination, and he reaches out to touch Spirit's hair as he says, "I'll try to remember."

The words are calm and colored with teasing, still, but the touch feels like it carries infinitely more weight than it does in truth. Spirit can't remember when someone last touched him affectionately, even as minimal contact as fingers against his hair. He has no idea what his face is doing, other than that his eyes have gone wide with surprise at the contact, but Stein doesn't react to his shock, just smiles and turns to go.

Spirit follows him out to the door, sliding the deadbolt closed as the meister disappears down the hallway. He should go to bed, really, it will be more comfortable and he will feel better in the morning, but the living room looks very inviting, and when he settles into the couch it still has the lingering heat of Stein's body to take the edge off the emptiness of the house, and when he shuts his eyes and sleep comes over him his dreams smell faintly of cinnamon.


	12. Fear

Stein knows he can't confront the witch directly. It grates against his skull more than his screw does, but he knows it is true so far down in his battered psyche that even his internalized violence admits defeat. As a result he *doesn't* linger in the infirmary after finding Maka's file, just comes in while Medusa's wavelength is out of the building and takes the medical file with him when he leaves. It's still very hard to wait out what he knows is coming, to let Maka go in oblivious to the danger and wait through whatever Medusa may be doing to her, but Stein has learned nothing if he hasn't learned patience, so he waits down the hall and around the corner while Maka's wavelength lingers in the room with Medusa's.

He can't see anything off the witch-turned-nurse, of course - her Soul Protect is too good for that - but Maka's wavelength has no such barriers, flickering hot with anger or heavy with relief, and that helps a little. There is nothing he could do if something more drastic were to happen, nothing that wouldn't be suicide proper, but he can't tell Spirit until he has evidence, until he is ready to act. He has *felt* that paternal protection in his own head, stronger than anything even he has felt under any circumstance, and he is absolutely certain that if Spirit knew he would go straight after Medusa and not stop until he caught her and did his level best to end her. Stein would have to go with him - he can't leave his partner to such a fate alone, not after he has so recently found him again - but it *would* be suicide, as unprepared as they are right now. At best they would both die; at worst Spirit wouldn't survive and Stein would, and that possibility is so stomach-droppingly horrific that Stein's imagination shies away from the edge like it's an endless drop into darkness.

He reflects on all of this while he smokes his way through two cigarettes in quick succession around the corner from the infirmary, replaying his decisions up to this point and his options from here over and over. It's hard to be objective - he knows that his head is not a particularly rational place most of the time - but with no audience to frighten or pacify he grinds the screw over and over, resetting his thoughts into a new alignment when they get too fixed, and by the time Maka leaves the room he is confident that everything is as well-planned as it can be.

The girl jumps when he steps out in front of her, skipping back in surprise more than fright. "Professor Stein!" She is clutching a white paper bag, her wavelength fluttering with concern directed outward, presumably for her weapon partner.

There is nothing Stein can do for Soul, not right now. But *he* made the decision to keep information from Spirit, and in so doing adopted the responsibility to keep Spirit's daughter safe in the weapon's stead. He smiles, the curve of lips and eyes developed over the years alone until it can fool everyone but his weapon partner.

"Hey there Maka. What's that you've got?"

"Hm?" She looks down like she's forgotten what she holds before her face relaxes into a smile. "Doctor Medusa gave it to me. It's medicine, to help me recover after the last fight Soul and I had."

"Mind if I take a look?"

She could refuse him but he knows she won't. Maka has the instinctive response to authority that Stein has never been able to adopt or imitate, and she has apparently set him up in her head as an Adult despite all evidence to the contrary. She hands over the bag entirely without protest.

Stein pulls it open, shakes a few pills into the palm of his hand. "Hm." They're simple enough, red-and-white capsules, and he can't tell what they are without significantly more inspection than he is able to give them right now. Identifying them is not his plan, but he needs to give the impression of recognizing them on Maka's behalf.

"Ah, yes." He drops them back into the bag, folds the top over. Maka reaches for it but he pulls it back, just out of her reach. "Have you mentioned your struggles with Resonance to Doctor Medusa?"  
Maka draws her hand back and some of the light in her eyes fades. "No." She sounds like he's hit her, reminding her of a subject he knows is painful for her to even acknowledge, but it's an easy excuse and the first thing to come to mind. Momentary hurt is far better than allowing her to take some unknown substance given her by a known witch.

"I'm worried these will make the difficulties you two have been having worse. Sometimes you see those sorts of side effects of medications. It's a good thing I ran into you," he goes on. He doesn't look at her, lets false cheer suffuse his tone. "I'll stop by to see Medusa and see if we can work out an alternative."

Maka is looking at her feet, hands clasped behind her back. Her toes are almost touching; she looks like a wilted flower. "Okay."

Stein almost comforts her, would if he could think of the right words quickly enough, but then she takes an audibly deep breath, straightens her shoulders, and when she brings her chin up her mouth is firmed in determination and her eyes have reclaimed in focus what they lost in cheer. "Thank you, Professor. I'll do whatever I need to do to keep Soul and I Resonating."

*It would help if you let him do some of the work,* Stein thinks but doesn't say. He saw her stubborn streak the first day he met her in front of his laboratory, and she's more likely to reject him than take his advice on this. Instead he smiles again, turns away down the hall.

"Have a nice night," he offers absently, waving a hand in vague farewell as he steps past her. He walks slowly until he hears Maka's footsteps disappearing in the opposite direction, until he can be sure she won't overhear.

*What exactly is your plan?* Spirit's voice asks from the vantage point of the back of Stein's head. Stein doesn't have an answer but even the invented tones of Spirit's voice are soothing like a touch along his spine. They bleed off some of his tension so when he steps over the threshold of the infirmary he is ready to improvise as needed.

Medusa is bent over a filing cabinet, rifling through it with black-painted nails and huffing in exasperation. She's not talking to herself - too much to hope that a spy would have such a dangerous habit - but she hasn't heard him come in and from his angle Stein can see the letters on the cabinet she's digging through.

"Is this what you're looking for, Doctor?" Stein tosses Maka's file down in front of the woman, catches the back of a chair in his right hand. The movement gives him casual support and some part of his brain wants something in his hands, something to sweep between himself and the threat, even though rationally he knows a rolling chair is unlikely to do him much good for either defense or offense.

The witch still, stares at the file. Her wavelength is perfectly still but for the flicker of surprise at his presence. No tells there, not yet.

"Oh, you startled me. I didn't see you standing there. You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." She turns to face him. Her face might as well be a mask for all the emotion she's showing. He can't see past it - Stein's not had the opportunity or the need to become good at reading others, not when Spirit never knew how to hide his feelings - but he recognizes the edges, can see the fractures that he has spent years learning to cover in his own reflection, the tightness at the corner of her eyes and the twitch of a muscle along her jaw.

It's pointless to respond to her comment when it is just an attempt at diversion, and Stein is getting bored of this game. He's not attacking her, not closing with her yet, but the controlled part of him *wants* to. "The partners Soul Eater and Maka Albarn. Why are you so interested in them?"

"Well, it's just that those two have been through a lot lately, you know?" Her tone is spot-on, a perfect blend of professional distance and human compassion.

*Take a different tack.* He pulls the chair around one-handed, swings a leg over to settle into it. The loss of height advantage is deliberate, trying to keep her calm enough that she won't give over her cover in favor of dealing with him right here. Stein slouches low in the chair, lets his shoulders curl forward so he is leaning heavily on the back of the chair, and only then does he pull out the paper bag from his coat.

"Can you explain what this is? I took it from Maka. I must say, I've never come across this particular medicine before."

If he weren't watching her face so closely from behind his glasses, he wouldn't see the blink, but he is and he does, and *something* flickers across her wavelength too fast for him to see, like a spark of electricity or a spray of ink on paper. Then it's gone like it was never there, and if he didn't know already that she had Soul Protect up that would be confirmation too. *Nothing* disappears that quickly from an actual wavelength.

"It's a type of herbal remedy I created myself. I designed it to improve blood circulation and help regulate the pulse."

She is good. Better than he expected. She should have cracked at least a little at that first comment, should have been at his throat by now. What is she *doing* to make her cover this important to maintain?

"Ah," he offers, doing his level best to sound convinced and entertained, just the amusingly unbalanced professor intrigued by a new toy.

"Well, you caught me, I'm secretly obsessed with herbal remedies!" Medusa blushes, almost laughs self-deprecatingly, brings her right hand to her mouth. Stein can't quite read this - she's trying to play off something he doesn't entirely understand - but it's still the cover and therefore not important. "I know it seems strange - I mean, it is non-traditional medicine - I just wanted to help Maka and Soul, that's all."

Stein doesn't have to feign his laugh at all. It is part pleased with how long this game is going, part impressed with her cover, part legitimately amused by the absolute blatant lie in her story. "How sweet of you, Doctor. That is quite endearing, really." That comes out more sarcastic than he intended, but his mouth is running a little too fast, egged on by the flushing heat in his veins. He hasn't felt like this since he and Spirit were partners, since all the fire in his life died and left him cold and frozen, and the thrill of it is as intoxicating as alcohol. "But tell me something." *Stop stop stop stop," Spirit-in-his-head is chanting, but he's too far gone into the sentence to stop now. "Are you helping because you're a doctor? Or is it because you're a witch?" He tips his chin down, lets her sees his eyes because if he's going to do this, if he's going to provoke her into an attack, he may as well lay all his cards on the table right here and now.

She doesn't meet his offered gaze. It's easier to watch her in the reflection off the window, the blurred effect of the secondary image more than a worthwhile price for the illusion of security it grants him. Her eyes are narrowed and dark, the mask is gone entirely, and all the fire that pushed him this far cringes into ashes at the expression he can just make out in the glass.

*You're going to die,* his thoughts say, and even the mad comfort of Spirit's hallucinated voice is gone now. The words fall dead and still into his brain, echoing hollowly like there is really nothing in his skull but the screw running through it. *You're going to die and you're never going to see Spirit again.*

Even that doesn't elicit a reaction. His body is utterly frozen, taut in the moment as it stretches longer and longer into the breaths that would be there if either he or the witch were breathing.

When she moves, it is so sudden that he nearly jumps to his feet. All his muscles twitch in almost-movement before he realizes that she has turned *away* from him rather than lunging for his face, and Spirit's voice comes back on as if a switch has been flipped. *-reckless, that was *reckless* to do that without a weapon, godDAMNit Stein.*

"You're horrible, commenting on my appearance like that. I don't have to listen to this from you. It's sexual harassment." Her voice has cracked high with the pause of imminent violence but rationally that could read as legitimately upset, he supposes. The response doesn't really make sense, it assumes her obliviousness to the situation that he knows she does not have, but he can move now, all his limbs gone limp with relief, and he doesn't fight it, just lets the hysterical laughter come up his throat as he kicks off into a spin to cover his face and his jerky movements. "Promise me something, if you're gonna sue go after Spirit first, okay?"His voice is just as high with panic as hers is, and his facade is slipping too. Foolish to mention Spirit like that, as foolish as her own attempted cover-up, but it seems they will be leaving today with the shakiest of truces in place. The implications for the future are staggering - this is much more serious than he expected, whatever it is - but in the immediacy of the moment Stein is just glad to be alive. The chair tips backward out from under him; hitting the ground hurts almost as much as when the chair comes back around to land on him, but he is used to pain, and it is far better than the icy panic of a moment before.

"If you broke that chair, I hope you're going to pay for it," the witch snaps, and he's free. Stein shoves the thing sideways, pushes to his feet.

"I'll buy it off you," he says. That hysterical laughter is still pushing up his throat but it's fine, it's all fine, as long as he gets *out*, and he exits with the careful pace of someone trying very, very hard not to break into a run.

She doesn't follow. He makes it down the hall to the corner, around the edge, before his knees give out and he topples forward into the newly acquired furniture. The voice in his head is screaming at him, voice high and terrified with worry, and he can't steady his hands to hold a cigarette. It takes him three matches before he can get one lit and take the first inhale, a second inhale before he can push himself out of the middle of the corridor and against a wall to support his back. His head falls back, too heavy to hold, and he breathes deliberately slowly into the air, trying to steady his heartrate.

*For a second there I think she wanted to kill me.* His crossed arms are trembling, his hands are twitching against his coat. It takes a moment before he realizes what he's feeling. *Damn. I'm shaking.* He clenches his fingers against the sleeves of his coat, around the shaking muscles underneath, wills them both to lock into immobility.

"This is fear," he says aloud to the empty corridor. The sound of his voice in his ears instead of between them helps, reminds him that he's still alive. "That's good, then." A rational response, anyway. Spirit would be proud of him. "I'd forgotten what it felt like."He can remember, distantly, the terror in his throat at the thought of being alone, the frozen fear at the rejection in Spirit's eyes, but it has been so very long since he had anything at all to lose that in spite of his best efforts time had dulled the edge of that particular memory. It is for the best, he supposes. Better to remember the effects at something of a distance than to be crippled by every flickering memory of that time.

*I guess the ball's in my court now.* The wall is comforting against his spine, the voices in his head gone quiet like they're waiting for a cue, and for the time there is nothing but the smell of smoke and the trembling residuals of dying fear in his veins.


	13. Jealousy

Spirit honestly didn't expect Stein to show up to the anniversary party. Social events have never been his forte, or didn't *used* to be; Spirit is forced to apply the distinction, given how popular Stein seems to be as a teacher and around the Academy, and even the distant prickle of jealousy doesn't diminish Spirit's relief that his old meister is doing so *well*. It doesn't help the *confusion*, but relief is still predominant. Better to be slightly envious than worried, especially since he's started waking up from panicked dreams about saving Stein, about Stein *needing* him and Spirit not being there, ever since their conversation after Maka's victory on her test. Spirit hasn't had nightmares like that since Maka was born, and it helps to know there's not any substance to them, even if it does take away from his self-imposed importance.

The weapon doesn't arrive until most of the preparations are complete, sweeping in at Lord Death's shoulder and adopting some of the official presence by association. Stein's leaning against one of the columns, hands buried in the pockets of his everpresent lab coat but *not* smoking, for once, and he's wearing what would be a button-up shirt if he hadn't replaced all the buttons with stitches.

They aren't *quite* as familiar as they once were, but somewhere between fighting the Demon Sword together and drinking together Spirit's nerves have evaporated, and with the room mostly empty and Lord Death securely in place on the dais he wanders over to chat briefly.

"Stein. I haven't seen you in a few days, you been busy?"

Stein stays where he is, hands in pockets, but he tips his head toward Spirit. "Hey Spirit. Yeah, I've had a lot on my mind."

"You look good," Spirit offers. "I don't think I've ever seen you dressed up before."

Stein's mouth twists, more easily now than when they were children. "I don't think you would have. I didn't have occasion to in the past." The angle of his head sends light glancing off one lens but not the other, so Spirit can see the meister's gaze flick briefly over him. "You look good yourself."

Spirit laughs, pulls a hand through his hair. "I always wear this."

"I know." Stein tips his head away, staring out into the as-yet-empty ballroom. "I need to talk to you."

"We *are* talking," Spirit points out. The lack of tension makes him light in his thoughts and with his tongue, and he is teasing Stein before he can think over his words. "Did that screw jumble your attention?"

Stein smiles, a real smile, but it doesn't quite make it to his eyes, and he reaches up to brush his fingertips just across the end of the screw. Spirit can see him swallow, is relieved when Stein doesn't respond immediately. He hadn't meant to touch on a sore spot, but his circling curiosity has been getting the better of him recently, and he has an infinity of questions, about the scars tracing Stein's face, the screw in his hair, if there are more scars under the high color of his white shirt like those Spirit is hiding under his own. But this is *not* the time, and when Stein changes the subject Spirit lets him do so.

"You should know." His tone is flat and controlled but something in the pacing of the words, slower than usual, loads them with intention that Spirit isn't sure he wants to finish out. "Doctor Medusa is a witch."

There is a beat of silence. Two. Three. Spirit can't ever find it in him to look around to see if anyone else has been privy to Stein's singularly rapid descent into absolute insanity.

"Ste-in," he finally says, reaching out to very carefully touch the meister's shoulder with his fingertips. He is expecting a jerk away or possibly an explosion of violence, but he is a Death Weapon and it is his job to deal with threats, and he doubts his ability to handle this one singlehandedly but he has to try.

His fingers land on white fabric. Stein doesn't look at him, but when he speaks his voice is crushed flat with deadpan. "I'm not crazy, Spirit."

Spirit doesn't respond. He feels like some explosion is forthcoming. Stein doesn't *seem* unhinged but then he rarely does, and this is just too much to take at face value.

Green eyes cut sideways. Stein sighs, shuts his eyes, leans his head back against the column. Spirit keeps his hand just brushing the meister's shoulder as Stein begins to speak, and he imagines he can almost feel the vibrations of Stein's voice ripple through his chest and out into his shoulder.

"She's been using Soul Protect this whole time. I don't know when exactly she infiltrated the Academy, but she's definitely the witch we saw in Italy with Maka and Soul. That means she's behind Soul's injury as well, and the reemergence of the Demon Sword. She's probably the one behind the theft of it in the first place. She's been tracking Soul's progress, though I don't know for sure what she's done to him, and she's been trying to get at Maka through his black blood as well."

Spirit's hand jerks into a fist around a handful of fabric without any conscious decision on his part. "She's after *Maka*?" He didn't decide to believe Stein, still isn't sure he does, but even a possibility of a threat to his daughter needs to be dealt with immediately.

Stein rolls his head sideways, blinks at Spirit. "Yep. She's probably been trying to affect her ever since Soul was injured while fighting the Sword."

Spirit twists to go, bolting for the door to do *something*, but Stein reaches out faster than he expected the meister to react to seize his wrist. It doesn't feel like a tight hold, and Spirit imagines that to a casual observer it would look like nothing more than a loose grip, but when he twists his hand, sharp and hard enough to pinch the skin against the meister's fingers, Stein's hold gives as much as steel would.

"Spirit."

Spirit pulls harder, putting all his strength into it, and Stein comes forward off the column but that's it. The meister has gotten much stronger than Spirit in the last few years; Spirit suspected as much during their last fight, can see it in the breadth to Stein's shoulders and the way his body moves under that white shirt, but he hadn't realized exactly *how* much stronger until now.

"*Spirit.*"

"Let me go." His voice is very low and flatter than he expected, but he's not particularly concerned with modulating his tone at this point. "Let me *go.*"

"She's safe."

Spirit goes still, although he doesn't turn, and Stein keeps talking, voice soothing and slow like he's talking to a wild animal. "She's perfectly safe. I've been keeping an eye on her since I knew. She'll be here in a few minutes, she'll be here all night, and she'll be *fine*."

Spirit half-turns, takes a step in to release the tension somewhat. Stein doesn't let his wrist go, but from this angle he doesn't think anyone else in the room can see the meister's hold on him. Stein goes on speaking, faster now and quieter, like he's leery of eavesdroppers.

"Listen, Spirit. Maka and Soul and the whole Academy are in grave danger. Medusa is trying to revive the Kishin under the Academy; I don't know when or how she's planning to do this, exactly, but I asked Sid and Nygus to go looking for evidence on her and they're not back yet. They might not come back at all." Pause for breath. "I need you to back me up. I'll close with her to get more information but if she tries something I might not be able to handle it, and I need someone else to support me, especially if it comes to combat."

"You don't need a weapon to fight, Stein," Spirit offers. He's still not entirely convinced, but Stein's eyes are tracking him without any flicker of unbalance and the meister *looks* perfectly rational and this close he can hear the slightly panicked rate of his breathing, and Spirit's never known Stein to be *afraid* when he loses his grasp on sanity.

Stein laughs, short and startled. His face cracks into surprised softness, like he's wearing a mask that slips for a minute; his mouth curves like he's trying to smile and frown at the same time, his eyes melt at the edges, and for just a minute he looks very very much like he used to. "I *do* need you, Spirit."

Rationally Spirit knows Stein is talking about the witch, that this is more indicative of the witch's power or at most his own status as a Death Weapon than anything else. But for just a minute there is a resonance in Stein's words that tingles across Spirit's skin like Stein's fingers on his skin are electrified and there are a handful of memories that flicker into the forefront of Spirit's mind, offering an explanation that runs somewhat deeper than just his value as a Death Scythe.

Then it's gone, insecurity winning out over the possible details before Spirit can even quite get a look at what he's considering, but he is still smiling without meaning to.

"Okay," he says. Stein drops his wrist, and there is a mental flinch of regret, but the meister smiles at him and Spirit can see his eyes for a minute and Stein looks like he's lit up, like his eyes are warm and alive like Spirit's never seen them before.

"Thanks." Stein's shoulders tense, and for a minute Spirit thinks he's going to reach out towards him, and then he drops back against the column. "You should go be a Death Weapon. I'd rather not tip everyone off beyond what they already have to work with."

Spirit glances back, suddenly paranoid, but there are still only a handful of early attendees and none of them are watching he or Stein. "You're right." He slides his hands into his pockets and turns to walk back to take his position at Lord Death's right shoulder.

He doesn't pay as much attention to the speech as he should; he's distracted by keeping an even closer eye on Maka than he has before, although from what he can tell she seems happy and healthy and not cursed or possessed or any of the various horrible possibilities his mind is offering. Medusa looks perfectly ordinary as well, except for the impressively slinky dress she has on in place of her nurse uniform. It's hard to believe that she's a witch, but Stein isn't moving from his post at the wall to engage her in combat, so there doesn't seem to be much to worry about regardless of whether his suspicions are founded or not.

There's not much for Spirit to do after the speech is over; he tries to track down Maka but she dodges through the crowd with an agility that he would be proud of were she not using it to thwart his attempts to catch her. Stein is slouched against a wall every time Spirit glances at him, holding a glass of champagne and tipping his head toward the light so Spirit can't see where the meister is looking. And Medusa is circulating, chatting and smiling and laughing and appearing to be exactly what she is. There is absolutely no reason for Spirit to believe Stein's groundless accusations. None. Definitely. Believing the meister just because he *wants* Stein to be right, because he wants to be needed in actual fact instead of delusional paranoia, is utterly foolish. As Spirit tells himself repeatedly. There is really nothing at all suspicious about Doctor Medusa and never has been that he's seen. But he keeps watching Maka, panic sweeping through him every time he loses sight of her in the crowd and relief crushing like a weight when he locates her again.

When she goes out onto the balcony, Spirit loses his patience and seizes the opportunity. It takes him a minute to work his way across the crowded floor, but she doesn't have anywhere to dodge to where she is, and by the time he makes it to the double doors leading into the cool night she is still there with her weapon partner. Maka is pleading with Soul, something about dancing, and Spirit steps into the middle of it without thinking. "Hold it right there! Come dance with your papa!"

Soul agrees with him, in what Spirit is sure is the first case of their agreeing on anything at all in the whole history of their relationship, and with no resistance from the weapon it is easy to catch Maka's wrist and pull her out on the dance floor. She doesn't fight once they are in the crowd, just goes sullen and silent, and although Spirit has to pull her into the right position it turns out that a limp Maka is actually a *better* dancer than when she's trying, and it's easy enough to sway back and forth in approximate time with the music and take her with him.

When Stein moves, the shift draws Spirit's attention like his name has been called. The meister pushes off from the wall, and from his angle Spirit can *see* his gait shift into a stagger, can see the clear line of his shoulders drop into an unbalanced angle. Stein pushes a hand through his hair to rake it off his face, glances around the room, and his mouth reshapes into a bleary curve. When he stumbles towards a column Spirit catches a glimpse of deep purple and at least minimal understanding sweeps into him. Stein leans in towards Medusa, clinking his glass to hers, and his laugh is so unfettered that Spirit can hear it from where he stands even before the meister upends the champagne flute into his mouth. Spirit watches the movement of his throat while he swallows. It's the first thing Stein has actually had to drink all evening, but from his behavior Spirit would never believe it.

Medusa certainly doesn't suspect. She is cringing back against the wall, clearly trying to put Stein off, but the meister has leaned back in and is smiling wide all across his face. When he catches Medusa's hand and pulls her out onto the floor Spirit feels like all the heat in the room is condensing across his skin, hot like a sunburn while his stomach drops into coldness.

*Stupid to be jealous,* his mind chastises. *It's not like Medusa ever looked at *you* twice.* It rings a little hollow even in his own head, something about the explanation not quite settling into reality, but he forces himself to look away and back at his daughter.

Maka isn't looking at him. She's glaring at the floor, her shoulders slumped forward in resigned frustration, and he nearly laughs at how adorable she looks but catches it back at the last minute. She will *not* appreciate it, not at this point.

"Know what I'm thinking about, Maka?" he offers in an attempt to break the hardening glacier of her irritation that is forming between them. "The last time we danced. It was the day of your kindergarten graduation. You danced on my feet." He can remember perfectly, call up Maka's easy grin and child-chubby cheeks, the number of times she fell off the raised surface of his shoes and the way he pulled her back up. The way she looked when she laughed. He hasn't seen her laugh in years. "And then afterwards I danced with your mama. What a great day."

Maka turns her head away and, if anything, her glare gets colder. "It wasn't mama you were dancing with. It was actually Sarah's mother," she grits out between clenched teeth.

*Oh crap. Was it really?* Spirit cringes, but Maka's not looking at him so at least she doesn't see the tell. *Oh boy, did I screw that one up. Leave it to Maka to remember that far back.*

"Anyway, I'm dancing with you now, and that's what counts, isn't it?" He is trying to convince himself as much as her. He may have had to pull her out onto the dance floor with him, but at least she's here. She could have refused. "Tonight will be a great memory. I promise you Maka, I'm going to be a better papa."

"No way," she hisses.

He drops it. All his effort to get this far will be for nothing if he actually pushes her far enough to leave him on the floor entirely. The ice reforms in the air. He sighs and looks back up and away.

The vibrant purple of Medusa's dress catches his eye first. Then he processes what he's seeing and goes so still that Maka notices, looks up at him.

"Papa?" she asks, voice approaching normal human warmth again, but he barely hears her. Medusa is close to Stein. *Very* close. And leaning in, as far as he can tell. Stein's hand is resting against the skin of her back exposed by the low sweep of her dress, her fingers are resting on his shoulder, and she is *definitely* going in for a kiss that Stein is *definitely* not retreating from. Spirit would look away if he could - his blood feels like it is turning to ice as his skin flares hot on the surface - but he has turned to stone, frozen in place while his brain shrieks in frustrated jealousy and his mental angle on the situation clicks into place so sharply he is sure it must be audible.

It's not *Stein* that he's jealous of.

"*STEIN!*"

The shout so perfectly echoes Spirit's thoughts that for a horrified moment he thinks he is the one who spoke. Then Medusa jerks back from the meister and he can think again and realizes it came from the doorway, not his own mouth, and that is it Sid's voice he's hearing.

"Get everyone out of here immediately!" Sid yells, and Spirit turns toward the sound to see the knife-meister crouched low in the doorway, looking battered and all but dripping blood.

*I asked Sid and Nygus to go looking for evidence,* Stein's voice echoes back in Spirit's head. Maka drops his hands, runs towards the former teacher, and the room is dissolving into chaos around him but that moment of perfect clarity is still in effect, and Spirit feels like he can see *everything* for a moment, like everyone is moving in slow motion. Stein is moving towards the doorway too, half-jogging to cover the distance, and the whole crowd is converging on that point, but Medusa glances at the bloody meister, turns, and begins moving in the other direction. The crowd parts around her, too stunned to process the implications, but the ice is melting out of Spirit's body and he is watching her maneuver carefully to the balcony. There is yelling behind him, confusion and concern warring for dominance, and Medusa dodges Soul on his way indoors and Spirit starts to move after her.

He doesn't have a plan, but enough years with Stein have taught Spirit that letting a mastermind leave unattended is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot, and when Stein's voice crackles harsh with panic "*MEDUSA!*", both the witch and the weapon bolt for the balcony.


	14. Possessive

Stein spends his time outside the Academy locker rooms turning his screw over and over and over again. His body is strangely tight, muscles tense with worry and anticipation and concern. He's never felt this way before a fight. It's reminiscent of his conversation with Medusa in the infirmary, the lingering residue of his racing, reckless panic while they danced, and it is settling so deep into the fibers of his body that all the jumbling of his thoughts does nothing to displace the sensation. After a minute of failed attempts he gives up, leans against the wall and shuts his eyes. Without the interruption of the shifting gears his thoughts land back on Spirit, as they always do, but it is more of a comfort at the moment than anything else.

*I hope he made it out.* The thought is half-directed inward, to the invented voice in his own head, and half out, along the trickle almost-Resonance that must eventually lead back to the weapon. *I'll die if I try to fight Medusa without him.*

*You might die *with* him,* the higher voice offers. He doesn't respond to that.

Maka is the first one out, impressively quick at changing out of her formal heels into her favored boots. Stein glances at her sideways. "You ready?"

"Yes, Professor." Her eyes are firm and steady. She might not entirely understand what's she's walking into but those eyes say that she doesn't need to, that she'll accept whatever they come across. That's good.

Black*Star and Tsubaki emerge almost at the same time, the meister carrying the last of his equipment while Tsubaki is tugging her hair down from its careful arrangement. Then the Thompson sisters, breathless and straightening their shirts. Finally Soul, and then in a surprisingly short period of time Kid. Stein had been ready to send one of the others back in to pull him out bodily if needed, but either he managed his clothes perfectly on his first try or he is getting better at pushing aside his aesthetic panic under duress. Interesting. Worth investigating later, possibly, but now is not the time.

Stein takes the lead down the corridor as soon as the door opens to announce Kid's presence. He doesn't say anything, but he doesn't have to; all seven students drop in behind him, half-walking and half-jogging to pace his longer strides. The stop to change into backup clothes was inconvenient but necessary; time is of the essence, but walking into a fight in formalwear would have been nothing short of insanely foolish, at least for the meisters involved.

It's not far. The air drops in temperature as they descend the final stair, going past the floor where Stein and Spirit found the Demon Tool that took them to Italy and down a dusty corridor lined with melted-down candles and spiderwebs. No one speaks. Stein hopes that's because of focus and not fear, but there's no more time to train the students behind him. They will have to survive as they can, however much he wishes he could do more.

He slows to a walk as they approach the final entrance. He has been down this far only once, years ago, when he became a three-star meister and Lord Death revealed the grand secret of the DWMA. It had been just as poorly lit and foreboding then, but Stein hadn't been as tense as he is now. Being told about something and going to confront it are two very different things.

He comes to a halt, facing the blood-red outline of the entrance in front of them, and the footsteps behind him stutter to silence as well. He keeps his gaze fixed down the darkened hallway past the square opening. He doesn't sense anything coming up, not yet, but that could change at any time.

"This is the entrance we need." He offers for the benefit of the children behind him. *They deserve the truth.* His mental voices blend in perfect harmony. "Our enemy is powerful. If you aren't prepared for what lies ahead, then you may die." His fingers close around a cigarette. It's nearly the last in the pack. *That might not matter anyway.* He runs his tongue over his dry lips before setting the paper to them. "If you want to turn around, better do it now." The matches are easier to find, the box almost full. His hands are steady as he lights the match in spite of his expectations; the light blooms hot on his face for a moment before he shakes out the flame, blows out a puff of smoke, tosses the match into the shadows of the corner. "Are you ready to fight against fear itself? Will you cross beyond that door? Let your souls make the decision for you."

He can't get as clear a read on their mental states when he isn't looking at them; by rights vision should have nothing to do with Soul Perception, but in practice it is hard to pick out details without the assistance of sight, even if only due to the psychological crutch of habit. But he can feel the press of conviction at his back, reminiscent of fights years past, and he doesn't have to hear Maka's response to know their decision.

"We're coming."

He turns to look back at them. The scythe-meister's not the only one with that determination across her face; for all their disparate appearance, all seven of them look like siblings for how similar their expressions are.

His hand is still steady on his cigarette. His adrenaline has spiked high enough that he has leveled off, breathing slow and calm because if his heartrate were following his panic he would have passed out. "Good."

It helps to run. The darkness past the entrance opens up into a steep staircase and it takes all of Stein's focus to keep his balance steady as they all race down the descent. The weapons transform without him saying anything and the meisters follow him in similar silence for a few minutes. When it becomes clear that they still have some distance to cover, Maka clears her throat from behind Stein.

"Hey Kid, how did Lord Death seal away this Asura guy in the first place?"

"First my father tore off Asura's skin, made a tightly sealed bag out of it, and then stuffed Asura inside." Kid's voice is perfectly level. It is a special kind of uncanny to hear those words in a child's voice, and for a moment Stein has a very clear impression of how he must have seemed to those around him as a child. "Then he rooted his own soul and body here, inside Death City, to keep the Kishin from ever breaking free."

Black*Star chimes in. "And because of that Lord Death can never leave the city?" Huh. He picked up on more of the situation than Stein thought he had. The boy is continually exceeding his expectations; it's pleasant to be so constantly and casually impressed.

"What if the seal was broken, and the Kishin managed to break free? Would Lord Death be able to go wherever he wanted?" Maka's voice is almost plaintive, reaching for hope in the worst-case scenario.

"That wouldn't work," Stein supplies. His thoughts are only half on the conversation; the rest is given over to watching the space in front of them, reaching out for a witch wavelength, worrying absently about how is going to fight empty-handed, how long he can last against a witch with no weapon. "Lord Death has attached his soul to this town. I suppose you could even say he's become one with Death City."

"So it's like he's become trapped inside himself." The student-tone is coming out between Maka's words again, the slightly distant focus on information rather than the present.

"If he wanted to go somewhere, he'd have to find a way of giving the city legs. And I don't really see that happening anytime soon, do you?" They are all focusing on the wrong thing, anyway. This is incidental; if the Kishin awakens there will be no positive side. "You can't even imagine how disastrous things would be if the Kishin is revived." Stein's mind briefly spirals down through the repercussions, the sweep of chaos across Death City, the country, the world. The collapse of his own ever-fragile hold on sanity. "Its madness is like a plague."

His thoughts wash out in a haze of red, for once too dark to be associated with Spirit, flickering from black to red until the two are one and the same. Something purrs in the back of his mind, not a usual voice but something else, something new. The intrusion is awful, like an unexpected voice in his ear or an unfamiliar touch cold under his skin. He shoves it away and it subsides out of the range of his senses, but his skin still prickles with horror.

*This is to be expected,* Spirit's voice points out. *You are walking *towards* the Kishin.*

They make it the rest of the way down the stairs in silence, just the even breathing of the meisters and the sound of feet hitting the stone underfoot as they pass through an archway into a high curved hallway. And then his vision flickers bright and he stumbles to a halt, Maka's footsteps stopping behind him as abruptly as his own.

Black*Star is asking a question that Stein doesn't hear. His vision has gone white-blind with the approaching light and his body is so limp with relief that he is barely staying on his feet. Maka says something - his name - and he responds generically since he has absolutely no idea what she said.

"Yeah."

He make a conscious effort of will to listen to her, to pick up the meaning from her words and not just the sound of them. "I've got something. It's a soul just beyond those shadows."

Stein can see it clearly enough, but he lets her go on. "There's something there. I know that soul. I'm sure of it. That nasty, despicable feeling," she goes on. It is an unnecessary cruelty but oddly funny in the moment; Stein has to very consciously lock his face still so he doesn't laugh.

And then Spirit is there, stepping forward into range of normal vision as well as Stein and Maka's Soul Perception. Black*Star goes loose with relief behind Stein, but Stein is only barely aware of the sigh from the boy.

"Papa." Maka makes the endearment a curse, and Spirit cringes back. When he speaks his voice is tight with defensive hurt.

"I'm not nasty. Or despicable."

Stein agrees, but when he opens his mouth the words that come out are carried on his relief rather than his heartbeat pounding too-fast with more than fear now. "How did you manage to escape from the trap they set up there?"

"When it comes to chasing a woman, no one's faster than I am!" Spirit's voice has dropped into his seductive range, purring over vowels and sliding consonants into liquid notes in his throat. His wavelength flickers. Something about that isn't quite true, but the tell is gone too fast for Stein to catch what, exactly, and it doesn't really matter anyway.

"I should have guessed," he offers, trying out flat sarcasm. "It is a relief to see you, though. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to do without my weapon around."

*Fuck.* He hadn't meant to use the possessive. He's been thinking of Spirit that way for nearly two decades now, though, and his stress is too high for him to properly consider his words before they escape, and his mind is keening for the weapon, his palms itching to touch Spirit, human-form or weapon-form makes no difference, and this is not the time to be distracted but the gap in his thoughts feels worse, somehow, more clean-edged and bloody when the missing piece is so near.

Spirit doesn't say anything out loud. His eyebrows flick up, just briefly, and then he makes a noncommittal sound of agreement. Stein steps in - he can't not, not when Spirit is so close - and the weapon doesn't move away, lets him close until Stein could reach out and touch his cheek if he wanted.

"Whadda we got?" Stein asks, trying for casual and trying very hard to keep his hands to himself for now. "Are they up ahead?"

Spirit angles down the hallway, following the line of Stein's gaze into the shadows. "Uh huh. Lying in wait for us." And he transforms, just like that, without taking his hands out of his pockets or looking at Stein at all. Stein's right hand comes forward with no conscious act on his part; he doesn't entirely realize Spirit is transforming until his hand closes around the scythe handle, and then Spirit is *there*, the gap is gone like it never existed at all, it's just him and his weapon like they *used* to be.

Spirit grins and the motion is so near that Stein's own mouth tries to turn up at the edges. *Nice reflexes.*

*Thanks.* He glances sideways at the cross-shaped weapon in his grip. *Where's the blade?*

Spirit preens. Stein can feel self-satisfaction pouring off him even before it seeps into his voice. *I learned a thing or two when I became a Death Scythe.*

*Right.* Stein rolls his eyes but the grin is catching on his face, euphoria pouring through him as his heartrate slows slightly to match Spirit's.

"Listen up," he says aloud. "From this point forward there's no telling what will happen. It'd be best for you weapons to not return to human form during the battle. When you're vulnerable, a single blow could be the end of you."

*I hope they know that already,* Spirit puts in. *They really are just kids, though.* The worry is warm with affection but painful, striking unfamiliar chords of emotion in Stein's head. He ignores the comment, tries to ignore the delight at having *actual* Spirit's voice in his head and not just an imitation of it.

"Why are they sitting up there waiting for us?" Black*Star asks. Some of the confident boom has left his voice, although he isn't whispering; the decreased volume speaks well of his ability to judge the situation when he needs to. "I thought they were on their way to the Kishin."

"No. They would have left some behind for protection." That's absent too, but there's a wavelength coming up the corridor, too far to see clearly, and Stein is trying to get a read on it. He knows who he suspects, is hoping he's wrong.

"Hey. Do you hear something?" Black*Star asks again, a moment later.

"Hear what?" Maka asks.

*The ears on him,* Spirit mutters. *I can't hear anything.*

*That's because you're in weapon form, Spirit.* Stein responds. The name is pronounced like an insult but underlined in affection. With Spirit this close he can't hide the ripple of pleasure at saying the weapon's name, even in his own head. Spirit doesn't pull away, just goes quiet so for a moment there is no sound at all.

Then there is a faint whisper, skin on stone a long way off. Maka's voice comes in, hard with focus. "Yeah, I heard that."

"It sounded like footsteps to me," Kid says in his careful precise speech.

"So they're finally showing themselves." Black*Star's voice is saturated with expectation, low and pleased. "Who's it gonna be."

Stein knows. The newly familiar sensation of fear is prickling over his bones, aching like bruises under his skin, icing over his thoughts, but Spirit is in his head, Spirit is in his hands, and that is enough to push off the crippling panic. With Spirit, he can do anything.


	15. Passage

It is *hard* to let himself be this close. If Spirit had any conscious decision in the matter he would be holding Stein at a distance, protecting his recent epiphany from the meister's all-too-perceptive abilities as much as possible, but it's never *been* a conscious decision. In the time between vaulting over the balcony after Medusa and transforming into weapon form here he hasn't decided much at all, but some part of him has declared that it *wants* this, that it is craving Stein infinitely more than Spirit ever suspected, and even at weapon-distance the grip of Stein's fingers around the scythe-handle is enough to send a shiver all through Spirit non-existent body.

He doesn't think Stein notices. At least there's that. There is a sense of relief, satisfaction heavy across Spirit's thoughts and he's *pretty* sure that's not his, but none of the startled surprise he would expect if the meister actually picked apart what Spirit is feeling himself, so Spirit lets himself relax into the comfort of the connection, the completeness of Stein's thoughts back-to-back with his, passing ideas back and forth with almost no conscious effort.

He is so deep inside his own mind, inside *Stein's* mind, that he doesn't hear Black*Star's question, but he catches Maka's response, her voice granting her words the import to him that they lack inherently. "Hear what?"

Spirit can't hear anything, but Stein's attention is focused outward and he gathers his meister hasn't caught anything either.

*The ears on him,* he murmurs with lips that don't exist. *I can't hear anything.*

*That's because you're in weapon form, Spirit.* The words are flat but for his name, which is very nearly a purr, and Spirit sucks in an intangible breath of panicked delight and then goes quiet, stilling his thoughts and reactions and praying that somehow Stein didn't notice his reaction.

The meister is silent. Spirit catches Maka's words, "Yeah, I heard that," in reaction to something he didn't, and then the boys are talking, voices at a distance that he can't be bothered to pick out because there is something far more important in Stein's head, pleasure that settles into Spirit's bones like a weight but something else rising too, swamped under that half-vicious satisfaction but unmistakable, a cold shiver over the warmth.

"Someone able to defend against and defeat multiple opponents," Stein says in response to one of those unimportant comments. This close every word trembles along Spirit's spine. He shuts his eyes, closing off even the illusion of sight to focus on the *something* under those words that he doesn't entirely recognize. "Someone who can attack several people simultaneously." The words are slow, carefully enunciated, and from his angle Spirit can hear the repressed shake in Stein's voice, tripping over syllables. That is *fright*, so strong it is shaking its way into the meister's voice, and that is more terrifying than anything else that has happened tonight, overlying Spirit's satisfaction with a dark premonition that they may not survive the night.

"Someone who will make *absolutely* sure not to let us through, no matter what," Stein finishes, and the emphasis itself is so foreign that it hits Spirit like a punch. He flinches with a body that doesn't exist, and Stein doesn't try to comfort him.

The footsteps are so loud now that Spirit can hear them, even muffled by metal and distance, and when he opens his eyes to face reality it is Medusa standing in front of them. Of course it is her; she is the one he followed down here, after all, but it is still a jolt to see her, blond and lithe as she ever has been but undeniably, unmistakably a witch now, the description picked up between her black clothes and the sharp angle of her mouth and the darkness in her eyes.

"How lovely to see you all again," she purrs. The words roll over her tongue and Spirit wonders if she is deliberately imitating Stein, wonders if that was what he was drawn to all along, the similarity in the depth of their voices. It is only a moment before he crushes the possibility down, buries it hopefully deep enough that Stein won't see, but the meister is talking and Spirit is fairly sure he didn't notice.

"Alright. Here's how I think it's going to break down." Stein's head goes tidy, orderly, his thoughts rearranging themselves into clear images instead of words, feelings, raw desires, and Spirit finds himself gazing into the meister's head as if it is a theatre. It is blood-red, the color of his own hair, with stitches patterning the walls like paper, and Spirit is laughing before he means to, because of *course* this is what Stein's head looks like.

The meister goes on talking, but his voice has taken on the lecturing tone that Spirit recalls from Stein's interactions with Maka in Italy, and there's not much he personally can do with the details of the plan of attack. He settles into his form instead, stretching into the corners and edges like cracking his joints first thing in the morning, mentally shaking himself into position and as much comfort as he can manage while avoiding direct confrontation with his own emotional state.

"There's just one last thing," Stein is saying, and his voice drops lower, gains an edge of focus that pulls Spirit's attention back to the hum of sound in his throat. "I want you all to make me a promise. I want you to promise not to die. Can you do that?"

Spirit laughs. The absurdity is too much, making such a request is so quintessentially Stein and the fact that he might *care* so surprising and charming that something clicks over in his brain and he giggles over the sternly serious responses of all three student meisters.

"Holding a strategy meeting right in front of your enemy?" Medusa asks. Spirit wonders distantly if it is possible for her to tone down the sultry in her voice, if maybe she just *always* sounds that way the same way Stein always sounds slightly bored. "Is that really the best idea?"

Stein reaches up with his left hand, pulls his glasses free of his face and folds them one-handed. His movements are smooth, languid; if Spirit couldn't feel the tension in his muscles, didn't know that Stein *never* takes off his glasses, he would have no idea the meister is worried.

*Is it going to be that bad?* he asks, barely at the edge of coherency along Stein's thoughts.

*Yes.* Is what Stein thinks, short and abrupt, but he says "Ah, well. I guess we'll just have to take our chances, won't we?" That is almost teasing, tipping right at the edge of emotion. Stein shifts his hold on Spirit's handle, fingers slipping from palms barely damp with sweat.

"Always so stupidly confident, aren't you? Shall we start the party then?" Medusa's face *collapses* so suddenly that Spirit draws back with a hiss of horror. Her eyes expand, eyelashes vanishing like they never were, nose flattening until the whole shape of her face is lost into some pseudo-reptilian thing. Her mouth spreads wide, a gash across her face instead of soft lips. When she starts to move her arms, the accompanying cloud of dust is almost a relief, just for the obscurity it grants to that face.

"Here we go," Stein calls to the students. "Don't worry about getting past her right away, wait for a good opening to present itself. Stay calm and collected."

He is a good teacher, much better than Spirit would ever have guessed. Even knowing his persona is a facade, the confidence in his words is slowing Spirit's heartrate, dampening his panic into manageable levels. He is making everything sound so *easy*, like following a set of ordered instructions or making a recipe rather than diving into a chaotic fight in an attempt to stave off the end of the world.

There is a trickle of amused appreciation, something like a smirk of gratitude, that finds its way into Spirit's head as Stein goes on talking. "Here goes."

The witch wraps her arms around each other, shoves them in the direction of their party in a motion that reminds Spirit of Stein's Soul Force, and shouts "Vector Arrow, times three!" as arrows coalesce in the air around her and shoot towards them.

"She's picked a perfect spell for keeping multiple attackers at bay," Stein shouts. "And it's more powerful than last time."

*Thanks for the exposition,* Spirit offers. *Great timing. Really stellar.* He can *feel* Stein roll his eyes at him, although his outward expression doesn't change.

All three of the student-meisters charge at the same time, but all Spirit's attention is focused on Maka. There is a snap of green skateboard, a shout from Black*Star, and "Two of them made it through!" Stein says, but it is the third that Spirit is worried for. He has enough time to see what she is doing, to see his perfect, brave, *fragile* daughter aiming for the dead center of the arrows, and in his first wave of panic he almost transforms back into human form, almost tries to throw himself bodily in the path of all that danger to protect her.

*Spirit, *don't*.* Stein's voice is only in his head, but the cadence of it locks him in place for a moment, long enough for the sanity to return and hold him in place while Stein goes on, his mental voice deliberately calm and rational and cold, bringing Spirit's flaring panic to lukewarm instead of blistering. *The vectors radiate from their power source, Medusa. If Maka is going to get past them, her best bet is to go through the gap in between.*

Spirit whimpers wordlessly, and Stein goes on, casting his fright into coherency and inexplicably drawing some of the nameless horror out by doing so. *But in that position she'll be surrounded by the arrows. A moment of hesitation and she could die.* There is no internal exposition to what Stein does; it feels like he catches Spirit by the back of the neck, physically holds him from a desperate transformation back to human shape. *And if Maka doesn't get there before the arrows close in, she won't have a chance.* Stein's last words borrow Spirit's agonized reaction again, shape them into coherency. *Focus on your speed, Maka,* and for all that she can't hear him the command in the thought is comforting. Spirit's never known that voice to be disobeyed.

There is a flurry of action, too confused by the obstructing arrows and the tangle of sound and movement for Spirit to entirely follow, but he does catch Maka's voice, clear and defiant. "You aren't going to beat me!"

As if on a cue, Stein bolts forward, shoving off the ground like he has a brief respite from the constant tug of gravity. Flicker-flash of memory sparks along their connection; this time Spirit can feel Stein's guilt like it's his own memory, the tingle of electricity bridging into his own veins, and the flush of emotions he recalls gets pulled in as well, blending the two halves into a single cohesive whole for a moment. Then the distance is crossed, Stein's hand connects with its target, and all the force that has separated them for the last fourteen years jolts out through Stein's palm and into Medusa.

"Soul Force!" The words are bitten off short; the sound vibrates through chest and arm and handle along with the whiplash recoil of the shock, warm like adrenaline through nerve endings and metal alike. The witch flies backward before she touches a foot down, sliding away in a rain of dust and debris.

"It's just you and me now, Medusa," and the singular is an accident but correct all the same. The witch hums, frustration tinging the sound, and amusement threads through fear-turned-focus, emotion from one mind and pattern from the other.


	16. Threads

Spirit is not a distraction. Even in Italy, when the constant ache of the distance between them was like an itch between Stein's shoulderblades, he was better, clearer with Spirit. Now all the twisted paths in his head are straight lines, or maybe it is that he has gained an extra dimension of distance and can see the whole pattern from above. Even his knowledge of their danger, the fire in the witch's eyes and backlighting her soul, can't shake his satisfaction. It is hard to take the world very seriously at all, just at the moment.

"It's just you and me now, Medusa." The pronoun catches he and Spirit together, the unit they were always meant to be and finally are again. Spirit's wavelength warms the boundary of his own as if the weapon is leaning against his back, sharing warmth into his shoulderblades.

"Hm." She heaves a sigh, turns all her attention onto the two of them. Stein can feel her consideration like it is pressing into his skin physically, leaving a prickle of discomfort in its wake. "I miscalculated. To think that I let all three of them get away." Something in her tone makes Stein wonder if that was as much of an accident as she is treating it. Not that it matters. None of the students could have dealt with her. It was always only ever going to be them, at the end. "But as long as I stop *you* from getting any further, my plan will still succeed." The pronoun is weighted with almost a smile of anticipation and only applied to Stein. She is underestimating them. That is good. "Those three are just children, they should be taken care of quickly enough."

Spirit hisses in irritation at this slight to Maka, but Stein is already speaking, voicing back his own internalized experience. He does not need to be taught anything more than once. "I wouldn't underestimate those *children.*" He makes the word an insult, throwing back her own ignorance in her face. "Didn't you learn anything about our students' abilities during your little stint at the Academy? Or are you just a fool?"

She's not *just* anything, he knows, but Stein has learned how to probe until he finds a sore spot, and this gets him a token reaction. "No, I think you're the fool." She reins herself in audibly before she goes on, and he is impressed. Again. Her control is almost perfect. "We'll see. I wonder how they're going to do against the Demon Sword."

"They'll do just fine," Stein declares with significantly more certainty than he feels. Spirit goes tense at the back of his head but doesn't say anything, leaves his bluff intact even in the shared space of their heads. When the weapon flickers half-into human form, Stein recognizes the distraction for what it is. *Thanks.*

"Medusa!" That's a voice Stein's never heard from Spirit before, lower than usual, richer and deeper and laced with attempted charm. Stein wants to smile. He doesn't. "I must admit I always loved seeing you in your nurse's outfit." Spirit's emotions are all out of balance with his voice, his pose, his smirk. Stein thought Spirit would never be able to hide his feelings as well as he is doing right now. Apparently he is more successful at covering them up than repressing them entirely. "Although the thought of seeing you *out* of it is more exciting, especially if I was the one taking it off."

*I didn't know you had a nurse fetish, Spirit,* Stein offers directly.

*Shut up, Stein,* Spirit shoots back with more actual heat in the words than any of the ones he just offered Medusa.

"Y'know, I was *dancing* with her tonight," Stein says aloud, letting his voice drop into the teasing cadence that got such a rise out of his weapon in the infirmary.

He is expecting a snap response; he is *not* expecting the cold burn of jealousy that shivers across Spirit's wavelength and leeches into his voice when he speaks. "Yeah I *saw* that, just rub it in why don'cha!"

There is a rapid-fire calculation that Stein's thoughts run through, the standard process he has perfected to (mostly) correctly interpret others' reactions. Facial expression: lowered brows, shining eyes, leaning in to intimidate. That means *actual* anger, laid thin over the ache of jealousy. Right up in Spirit's head as he is there is almost no chance this is a false interpretation, even Stein has had only minimal success at buffering Spirit from his emotions when they are sharing thoughtspace. Is Spirit *actually* interested in Medusa? No, or there would have been a flush of pleasure at the idea of undressing her. So why would he…

Oh. *Oh.* The realization is so sharp and so blinding that Spirit *must* feel it. The weapon goes silent like Stein's cut through his words with a knife, and heat is rising up into the cheekbones just visible in Stein's periphery.

Medusa chuckles, low in her throat, and Stein realizes that she is entirely oblivious to their internal back-and-forth. "Boys, boys, must you fight? It embarrasses me so." Her voice is throaty with seduction, rich in a way that Stein supposes might be appealing in other circumstances, to other people.

He copies her. It is easy, easier than he ever thought it would be, to draw that purr into his own voice, let the emotion in his head seep dark into his throat. "Does it?" The words are for Medusa but the sound is all for Spirit. "How impolite of us."

Spirit doesn't shiver. He doesn't shiver so hard that Stein can feel the tension of determination all down his spine, and if they weren't about to start fighting for their lives and if Spirit's daughter weren't in mortal danger and the Kishin wasn't on the verge of awakening Stein would...have no idea what to do, but he would be more than willing to experiment. Unfortunately all of the above are true and this is not the time to explore this new lack of resistance from his weapon, so rather than seeing if that tone gets the same response from inside their thoughts as it does out loud, Stein sets all of the adrenaline-laced shock aside - it's not like he knows how to process that anyway, even borrowing Spirit's experience - and breathes deep, lets the weapon-sense form around his wavelength while Spirit steps sideways into extra height and breadth, and when he opens his eyes he has no idea what color they are.

He can see the boundary of their own wavelength; it expands far past the container of even his shared form, white-bright until the whole corridor is cast in light. But he can see Medusa's too, so black it looks purple, swallowing the light into the shadows around it.

"My my, that's quite a large soul you have. Perhaps I would be willing to dance with you again."

"Thanks, but I'm gonna pass on that one," Stein-Spirit says with a mouth half-familiar and half-novel. There is a white spark against the floor in the midst of the dark sphere around the witch, bright like lightning. He can feel it, like a memory he has to reach to remember, a dream almost on the verge of forgetting. And like this, with Spirit's blood under his skin and his own steadiness in Spirit's head, he can reach out, thread the spark down into the floor with a casual disregard for physics. "I don't really think you're fit for dancing, now."

There is a shift, a motion like a ripple across the singular wavelength, and Stein is wholly himself again. He can feel Spirit shifting hallucinated shoulders, squaring himself back into his own skin and body, grinning in the satisfaction that Stein is keeping off his face.

"My feet." Medusa's voice is flat, frustrated. Good. They've finally got under her skin. "What is this?"

"Those are Soul Thread sutures. The soul wavelength I blasted into you a second ago is still there. As we speak it's working its way through your body like an electric charge. I used the wavelength like a thread to sew your feet to the ground."

*Impressive,* Spirit murmurs, and there is absolutely no mocking in the tone, just sincerity warm and glowing. *When did you learn how to do that?*

*You inspire me.* It doesn't come out flirtatious, exactly - if anything Stein borrows that genuine tone from Spirit like he's imitating an accent - but he can feel Spirit's flush of reaction ripple all across his skin, tingle over his wavelength like the charge currently holding the witch in place.

"How can you control your soul wavelength that precisely?" The witch is very good at modulating her voice, but they have her off-balance, flustered by the surprise of this maneuver. It should be a surprise, after all. Stein didn't know he could do this until he has Spirit back in his head, clearing the fog of confusion from the corners of his mind, brushing clean the pattern of possibility.

"A weapon can have more than one use, he doesn't just amplify a meister's wavelength." Spirit is having far too much fun with this; his tone is patronizing, lecturing Medusa on something that *everyone* knows and she should too. "It's also possible to increase the accuracy of wavelength control."

*Yes, you are definitely the resident expert on this technique,* Stein hisses at Spirit, though neither of them let their expressions falter. *You've used it *so* frequently.* It only takes a touch of sarcasm to bring Spirit's snapping response: *Shut *up*, Stein,* overlaying the witch's scramble for understanding.

"So then it's a technique that only powerful meisters and weapons can pull off?"

*So it would seem,* Stein responds to Spirit's unvoiced query, the flood of uncertainty laying over the tangle of unfamiliar emotions in his head.

"Medusa. Listen closely to what I have to say." Spirit's voice still has that domineering Death-Scythe tone. It's nice to hear, especially nice to admire the complexity of the outer facade as laid over the conflicted interior. His cover is almost as seamless as the witch's was while she was spying at the Academy. "I'm the only Death Scythe at the DWMA. If I allow the Kishin to revive under my watch, I won't be able to show my face to any of the other Death Scythes around the world."

Medusa is less impressed by Spirit than Stein is. "Your point?"

Stein can see the words forming in Spirit's head as clearly as if they are printed in front of him. "The point I'm making -"

Stein talks fast, steals the words from his mouth so for a moment they are speaking together, echo and lead trading roles as he speeds through the sentence. "The point he's making here is that we're going to beat you no matter what! Right?"

"Hey, not cool Stein!" The irritation in Spirit's voice is minimal, fast-burning frustration that will be ashes in a few seconds, but the whine in his voice is amusing and endearing at once, and it draws the full scope of his attention back to Stein for just a moment. "That was my big line."

*Sorry.* Stein thinks without feeling.

*No you're not.* The anger is already cold, the words now just a token gesture as Spirit slides back into full weapon again, forming his usual razor-sharp blade as he does. Stein grins, pulls himself away from the voice in his head and into the fight in front of him with an active force of will.

"Medusa. Consider yourself fired. Now!" This last more of a command than a declaration; Stein bolts forward, Spirit following him in perfect step, moving faster than he ever has before with speed born of years of practice alone combined with all the rapid-fire reflexes of the right partnership. He doesn't have to reach for the memories this time - Spirit is offering them up in advance, anticipating his movements before Stein himself has fully decided on them. He feels the trickle of past-distant pain and guilt and loneliness like a cue to act and lets his free left hand go hot with electricity before he slams it into the witch. She flies backward, crushes into the wall hard enough that he *should* hear bones crack and coughs blood as evidence of the damage.

Spirit's thoughts bleed into his between one breath and the next, and he's not sure which of them is in control of the meister's vocal chords when they say "Sutures go!" It doesn't much matter anyway; when his self is hovering between meister-weapon the distinction between the two is so illusory he wonders if it has ever truly existed at all. It is the shared details of the memories, the clarity of the grass to Spirit's eyes and the feel of Spirit's breath on Stein's skin and the tear-hazed views of both their childhood faces from the other's perspective that snap the threads into being to pin the witch spread-eagled to the wall.

"It's over," he says again, and meister-Spirit is drawing his weapon back to swing and Stein is angling for the most damage and Medusa says, "You're not going to get any closer to me than that, Professor. VECTOR PLATE."

Spirit's feet slide out from under him and the surprise is so great that Stein drops back into just himself in midair, gravity veering under him from the motion and the disconnect both. Spirit drops his handle down to grant them both some friction and Stein pushes off the ground with his free hand and twists in midair to bleed off the last of their momentum. By the time his feet hit the ground he is entirely meister again, but when he speaks Spirit's thoughts echo his words into stereo.

"What did you *do*?"

"Anything that's on top of one of my vector plates will be sent flying in the direction the arrow is pointing." She looks startlingly calm as her tattoo unthreads from her skin, outlining her body to break the sutures pinning her to the wall. She drops as smoothly as if she is truly boneless to land on the arrow that they were recently atop. "Of course, the plates work on me as easily as they do on you." Her fingers brush over the arrow briefly before it sends her forward, arching through the air like gravity is barely a concern for her.

Stein hisses in frustration, swings Spirit around in preparation to swing, but even as they reach for Soul Force Medusa is gone. Her "Vector Plate!" declaration hits his ears a second too late, and even as Spirit chokes in too-late warning Medusa's foot connects with Stein's face. He barely has time to twist his nose out of the way of the blow, a moment to be grateful he took his glasses off to start this, and then the impact jolts down his neck and knocks him away.

"As you can imagine, I'm not eager to fight you up close anymore," she declares. The ground goes glass-slippery under Stein's fingers; when he glances down the obsidian-black of another arrow is underfoot.

"Damn, not again." He drops his free hand as if it will grant enough friction to counteract the impending movement and drops the wall between himself and Spirit simultaneously. Nerves prickle with that familiar electricity, bright like anticipation and delight and stripped of the painful edges.

"Now, come back this way!" Medusa declares, and almost on top of her the meister-voice is hissing "Sutures!" and threads form along skin, the sensation familiar from half those memories but lacking the associated trickle of blood and stamp of pain. A force jolts through the arrow, but the slick surface fails to do its job.

"You sewed your own body to keep yourself in place!" Its impossible to distinguish admiration from irritation in the tone. "But, how can you fight this when you're all sewn up?" The black tattoo curls out into reality again. "Light serpent!"

"Removal." The word turns dark and satisfied without any intention, Stein realizes as he slips back into himself. The stitches dissolve from the palm that has become fully his once again. Spirit's voice rings in his head as they both skid forward, pulling high with delight. *Good one! You timed that just right so you could use the plate to your advantage.*

There is a moment of pleasure, Spirit's appreciation echoing off Stein's own self-aware pride, and then the witch yells "Vector Storm!" and before Stein can process what is happening a cluster of arrows hits him full in the chest. He skids backward, momentarily stunned from a lack of breath, and for a heartbeat his vision goes dark and his hands go numb and all he can hear is Spirit screaming his name in the back of his head.


	17. Panic

Spirit can feel Stein's muscles go slack as the impact of the witch's attack whiplashes through his body, can feel the meister's mind going dark and blank for a moment, and the panicked scream his own voice makes into the echoes of that empty space is so involuntary it surprises him. It is only for a moment, though; then Stein blinks himself back into full consciousness, his thoughts fill back in with color and clarity and light, and he looks up at the witch facing them.

Spirit's attention is still on his meister - is he seriously hurt? will he be able to fight? can he breathe? - but so is the witch's. He can hear her laugh at a distance, cruel and pleased.

"I have a thousand snakes inside me that are under my control. They won't let any easy prey like you escape."

*I'll give *her* easy prey,* Spirit snaps, but the comeback lacks any real fire. The bite is gone under his concern and his flustered attempts to determine more about Stein's physical state than he can manage while they aren't Resonating.

*Be quiet, Spirit,* Stein offers, but that is soft too, the sound of his voice more reassurance than remonstrance. His grip on Spirit's handle tightens and he pulls himself upright with the additional support. When he speaks again it is out loud and his composure is rubbed raw, strained over frustration and pain so Spirit can hear anger under the pauses in his words. "Not eager to fight me up close, yeah right. When you cause pain you love to see it up close." His words are tumbling over each other, verbs coming fast and hard across his tongue. "Masquerading as a school nurse was just another one of your charades. You're nothing but a liar."

"I'm afraid you're wrong about that." That is the witch again, the pleasure in her words rising as Stein's anger flares across his voice. Spirit grits his teeth against the tone in her voice, keeps his thoughts incoherent to keep from distracting Stein. "'Why don't you join me?' You remember that, don't you? While we were dancing? I really meant what I said at the party."

Spirit doesn't have enough information to entirely understand what she is saying, but there's enough malicious delight in her tone to send his skin shivering cold with rage and enough clear panic in Stein's head to lock him frozen with fright. Medusa gets to her feet, still speaking. "I'm not lying when I say that I *want* you." It takes every piece of Spirit's resolve to not fling himself out of weapon form and just go for her throat with the jealousy that is burning ice-hot under his skin. He doesn't care what Stein is feeling, what conclusions the meister is drawing from his reaction, not right now. "You're a scientist, just as I am. We could watch the world progress together."

Spirit makes an awful sound, scraping along his throat and past his clenched teeth; it is something of a growl, raw with instinctive hate stripped clean of all the pretensions to culture he has built around himself. He has never made a sound like that in his life; it is more akin to Stein's reactions than his own. "What do you say, Franken Stein? Think about my offer. I'm not asking you as an instructor, but as a man of science."

Spirit hasn't been paying attention to Stein's thoughts. He has been afraid to look at them, afraid that the meister will have caught on to his reaction, but as the silence spreads after Medusa's offer the second wave of panic hits, carried on a fear that is *much* worse than the trivial worry about Stein picking up on Spirit's jealousy. The fury at Medusa trying to tempt Stein away is bad enough; the silence that says Stein is *thinking* about the offer is far, far worse.

*Hey. What's wrong, Stein?* Spirit asks. He is aiming for calm, collected, not nervous at all, but tension leaks around the edge of his words in spite of his attempts.

Stein doesn't answer, out loud or in Spirit's head. Spirit finally manages to turn his attention sideways, to look back against the wavelength he can feel outlining his own. He's never been as good at reading wavelengths as Stein is, has never been able to read anyone's but his partner's without Soul Perception, but even with his personal limitations he can feel *something*, slick over the top of Stein's thoughts like oil, and when he looks at the meister's face - a better tell for his purposes than the immediate feedback of wavelengths - there is no expression on his face at all. It is as perfectly blank as if Stein is a doll, a statue of himself, and Spirit's blood goes icy in his veins. There is *always* something to read, something at the corner of Stein's mouth or the back of his eyes to give Spirit some hint of how his meister is reacting. Stein hasn't looked this distant, this removed from everything around him, since they were children, before they Resonated that first time.

"Vector Plate," the witch says. There is a flare of light tracing out an arc in Spirit's vision but he's stuck focusing on that blank stare, on those green eyes gone flat as if Stein himself is fully absent. "Don't you see, Professor Stein?" Spirit would tell her to shut up, can't she see Stein's not hearing anything, but she can't hear him in weapon form and he doesn't want to leave Stein and *god*, if Stein would just *look* at him Spirit could take a deep breath again.

"The vector plates around you all point to *me*." She continues. "There's no point in resisting, I always get what I want in the end."

*STEIN!* The shout is shrill in Spirit's head like he's yelling at a wall. He would swear that Stein is farther away now than he was before, like their connection is wavering thin. *Stein, come *back*!*

And Stein blinks and he's there, behind his eyes and in his head and Spirit has no idea what happened or if he was imagining everything but he is too relieved to be embarrassed about possibly overreacting. He can worry about that later. It's always been his style anyway. Stein will understand.

"Huh," Stein says to nothing in particular. It's not an answer of any sort, but it's enough to prompt the witch to go on.

"There is no escaping from me," she declares, self-satisfaction hot under the words.

Stein opens his mouth to reply, and Spirit is sure now that it is a refusal, it was *always* going to be a refusal, of *course* it was, and then the meister startles, jerks upright to peer down the dark corridor in front of them like he can see something in the shadows past the witch. If they were Resonating Spirit might be able to see something, borrow Stein's eyes to see whatever it is that surprised him so, but as it is he is deaf and blind and has nothing at all.

*Stein,* he reiterates, just to make sure he still has his meister's attention. *What's happening?*

"Against my instructions, Maka is fighting the Demon Sword on her own." There is only a moment of irritation, carried exclusively by that first unnecessary clause, but it is there nonetheless.

**What*?* The word isn't a question and isn't intentional. It tears from Spirit's thoughts with all the violent reflex of true shock.

Medusa's laugh grates across his flooding panic. "Oh sad, it looks like your precious *daughter* wants to get herself killed." The word turns into an insult in her mouth and Spirit is snapping back before he remembers she can't hear him.

*I wouldn't underestimate my daughter, Medusa.* The words are half-borrowed from Stein's thoughts but the affection on the noun is all his, built up of the years of pride that Maka has *always* brought him.

"Hm. We shall see." The words are perfectly attuned to his reply so for a moment Spirit thinks she is answering rather than continuing on her own personal train of thought.

"May I ask you something?" Stein's voice is back to normal, delicately edged in aggression so sharp it won't be felt until after the wound is bleeding out. "Where did you abduct the child who became the Demon Sword meister?" Spirit has a pang of guilt. He hadn't thought of this at all, hadn't thought of the Sword's meister as a child since that first fight against it when Stein warned him against pity. "Your first plan was to use the Demon Sword to create a Kishin, wasn't it? But now you're more interested in reviving the Kishin sleeping under the Academy. That's because your first idea isn't working out, right?"

*How do you *come up* with all this?* Spirit wonders, but Stein is still talking.

"The Demon Sword is failing you. It is showing no signs of becoming a Kishin anytime soon. So instead you risk using the black blood to wake Asura. And now you're left with a child you have no use for."

Stein grins, that toothy amusement without any warmth in it at all, while Spirit feels retroactively awful on behalf of the damaged, broken child facing down his daughter somewhere.

"It looks like your grand experiment has failed." Stein sounds positively *gleeful* about this fact, relishing Medusa's failure in this step of her plan. "And pretty soon, everyone's going to know it."

Spirit doesn't really expect the witch to break down in tears of misery at her own failed plot. Still, laughter is one of the last things he thought to hear, especially with the warmth of sincerity that is shot through it. It's like Stein's startling laugh, except that Stein's falls flat and cold instead of this rising tide of heat. Spirit likes Stein's better.

"Why the laughter? Did I say something that amuses you, Medusa?" Stein asks, and then Spirit realizes that he *didn't* know the details, that he *never* knew, that he's trying to bait Medusa into spilling more information than they currently have, and Spirit is impressed all over again.

"You really are a fool, aren't you?" Warm again, condescending and entertained by their weak attempts at understanding. "It may look like I failed to *you*, Professor Stein, but all of my work has pertained to the black blood from the very beginning. Oh, and one other thing. Another part of your theory that is completely wrong. I didn't abduct the Demon Sword meister from anywhere."

*What?* Spirit asks. Confusion floods Stein's thoughts and his smile fades away. "Huh?"

"You see, Crona is my own child."

She says it like it's nothing at all, like it's a simple truth they should have seen all along instead of a horrifying realization.

*So he…* Spirit starts, but even when he pauses hopefully Stein doesn't step in to fill that void. *He has no one to go to at all.* This time, when pity prickles against Spirit's eyelids and flushes his throat hot, Stein doesn't chastise him. Stein doesn't say anything at all, and his silence speaks of his acquired empathy more than anything else yet has.


	18. Distraction

The Resonance from down the corridor is so strong Stein can almost taste it. It curls out like smoke from a distant fire, and he can't see the exact motions of the fighting meisters but the wavelengths are blinding even at this distance, the flavor of the connection tainted like it's been dipped in oil. He wants to spit to attempt to clear his mouth of the almost-familiar taste. It would be better if it weren't so recognizable, if it didn't compare so closely with his own long-term Madness.

"Such strong Resonance energy!" he says aloud.

The witch must be able to sense it too, or maybe she's just reading the details from the concern he can't keep off his face. "So it's beginning!"

Spirit's nerves are fraying. Stein can feel him shifting restlessly; he would be fidgeting if he weren't in weapon form. *Hey Stein, what's going on out there?!* he asks again.

If there were time or words to really explain what is going on, Stein might try to offer a more detailed response than he does. Maybe not. Without Resonating Spirit won't be able to make out the details of the distant wavelength. Without Resonating the weapon won't feel the familiarity of the madness leeching into his daughter's wavelength. At least this way all he is feeling is Stein's concern, not the cause of it. Spirit can't do anything anyway; better to save him this knowledge when it will do him no good, at least not now.

"The black blood is being activated." It comes out as a strained hiss. It's not just that Stein is drawing on Spirit's panic, although that certainly isn't helping; that dark wavelength is *calling* to him, crooning just on the edge of his hearing, and he's not sure if it would be worse if Spirit *can't* hear it or if he *can* and he doesn't want to find out. Bad enough when the purr of violence surged to the surface as Medusa offered him partnership; he hasn't felt that in *years*, before Spirit left, and never while he had his weapon in his hands. The implications are awful, so dark and unsettling that he is deliberately turning away to save Spirit and himself both the understanding of them. Stein knows he is avoiding them, and that negates much of the benefit of the avoidance, but his mental traction has gone as slippery as those damn vector arrows and he can't get purchase for his rationality.

The witch is still talking, oblivious to the speeding sound of Spirit's breathing and the skid of Stein's thoughts. "At long last, the black blood is ready. All that remains now is to inject it into the Kishin and revive it. You can keep struggling as long as you want but it's no use. My plan is going to succeed no matter what."

The black blood offers a mental handhold. Stein grabs onto it, swings his attention back around to the forgotten sword meister, prompts for information just for something to focus on. "Tell me. If you do get your way and the Kishin is revived, what will happen to the Demon Sword child? Your black blood research is complete. You're done with the experiment for which you needed this child. So now?"

He is trying to distract himself, keep his thoughts focused on that open question so his curiosity for the answer will keep him in place, and prompt the witch for more information if she cares to give it. It's not until Spirit hisses, an audible flinch since he can't physically recoil from the answer, that the meister realizes the answer may be more loaded than he intended.

"Oh please," Medusa answers, the words dripping with scorn. "What am I going to *do* with it? Let's see, I ordered it around all its life, so now it's lacking in independence - one reason not to be an overbearing mother, I suppose. Anyway, Crona didn't turn out well. It was a failure of mine."

Stein knows where this is going. Spirit knows too, even though neither of them are putting words to the inevitable conclusion, but while Spirit is cringing away from confirmation Stein lunges forward. It will be better to know, better to hear it out loud. Nothing is as bad in actual fact as it is in the endless hypothetical. And he wants to hear her say it, wants a *reason* to tear her to pieces.

"Lacking independence or not, he's your kid." Stein takes the half-smoked cigarette out of his mouth, holds it between his fingers while he lets Spirit's parental rage mingle with his own carefully studied ethical code, the stronger for the effort it took to learn it. "What are you going to *do* with him?" The cigarette crumples as his fingers form into a fist. Hm. That wasn't a deliberate action. He is angrier in his own skin than he thought. "What will you do with your *child*?" He almost doesn't recognize his own voice. The words are slow, carefully enunciated with the weight of his rising fury.

The witch *laughs*, amused because she doesn't recognize her danger. *Quit *laughing*,* Spirit hisses at the back of Stein's head, for once giving words to Stein's emotions instead of their usual roles.

"What's got you two so *irritated*?" Medusa taunts. "You sound ridiculous. Do I *really* have to tell you what you already know? Think about it this way. Why would I keep something I no longer need? It makes much more sense to throw it away. But, why do you ask? Do *you* want it? You can have my hand-me-downs if you like."

Stein's face contorts into a grimace without his deliberate decision. Spirit is hissing in fury, breathing harsh and loud against Stein's thoughts.

"You could use it for your experiments or something," Medusa continues.

"You evil wi-" Stein starts, but the weight in his hand evaporates and the surprise stalls his crescendo of rage. Spirit has transformed, is striding forward, covering the ground so fast Stein doesn't have time to think of stopping him, and seizes Medusa by the front of her shirt to pull her in towards him.

"You damn *witch*!"

"Yes, what is it," Medusa answers. Stein is unwillingly impressed by how calm she sounds, apparently entirely unfazed by the Death Scythe currently pulling her towards him.

Spirit drags her in, closing even more of the distance. Stein can't pick up on his thoughts without the contact of handle to skin, can't see his face for the fall of red hair, but he can see the stiff angle of Spirit's shoulders and can hear the seething fury in the weapon's voice and he *knows* how far Spirit is lost, right over the edge into the incoherent rage that the weapon's excess of emotions sometimes causes.

"You…" The pause is full of impotent anger. Stein flinches for his weapon, too close for safety and lacking even the protection of words in his frustration. "Why you…"

"That all? If you're going to talk about something, the least you can do is know what to say."

The arrow is so fast Stein doesn't have a chance to yell a warning, and Spirit doesn't see it at all in the tunnel-vision of his confrontation. Stein just has time to see the impact coming so every muscle in his body flinches on Spirit's behalf before the hit shoves the weapon backward. He goes flying, tumbling across the ground until he manages to slow to a stop, catching himself on his hands just level with Stein.

"Spirit, watch it!" Stein gasps, fright turning his panic into aggressive chastisement. "You shouldn't be so reckless!" although that is what Spirit has *always* been, too fast to act and too quick to throw himself in the path of danger, just as much as Stein has always cringed from the vicarious fallout, wanting to protect the weapon from his own inherent spontaneity.

Spirit folds his hands in his lap. His shoulders go slack, all the anger of a moment ago burnt away as quickly as his emotions always flare, and Stein draws back from the tears just as they start because he doesn't know how to *handle* this.

"Oh great. Don't snivel like a little baby," he is saying before he can think, before he can find a better response. He shuts his eyes against the hurt he can't fix and his mind fills with the memory of Spirit's teary face inches from his, Spirit's breath warm against his chilled skin, Spirit's fingers clutched into the front of his shirt. "You're a grown man." It sounds like a rebuke, although it's more an attack on his own flickering memories than Spirit in the present moment.

There is a rustle of fabric, but when Spirit speaks again his voice is still dripping with half-caught tears and jerky with hiccups. "I know that, damnit. But unlike you, Stein, I'm a parent. So to me this is…" Another choked involuntary inhale. "How do I explain it to you?" That's a sob, pulling free from his throat in spite of his effort to pull himself together. "It's unforgiveable."

With his eyes shut Stein can see Spirit-as-he-was and Spirit-as-he-is overlaid together, can pick apart the threads of his logic without needing the pattern of the weapon's thoughts in his head to follow. And he can remember what it is to be alone, after he learned how to need someone. "If a child's own mother abandons him, who else in the world will he be able to turn to?"

"Yes, exactly, that's what I've been trying to say all along!" Spirit manages to get out, still teary but with relief and frustration both pouring into his words.

*Of course it was.* Stein smiles. "Hm."

Spirit shifts next to him and Stein opens his eyes to see his weapon getting to his feet. "In any case, we're definitely going to defeat her," and the tears are evaporating as fast as the anger, melting away to make room for the next storm.

Stein angles in towards Spirit, echoing his partner's stance without really meaning to but taking comfort from it all the same. "That's pretty much been the plan this whole time."

Spirit transforms smoothly, suit and body and hair all flickering out and reforming into his scythe-self. Stein watches the change, reaches out to wrap his fingers around the matte black handle just as it displaces the air.

As he settles his grip on the weapon, the wisps of wavelength coming down the hall curl in on themselves. For a moment Stein has the irrational idea that Spirit has somehow frightened them back the same way he holds Stein's own demons at bay, but the foolishness of this hits him at the same time that the blue-white light comes from under the black, backlighting it like an eclipse before it overtakes the darkness with a flash. And then it is gone, falling in on itself and out of sight so quickly that Stein wouldn't be sure it was there at all but for the afterimages he is blinking away from his Soul Perception vision.

"Hm." Medusa sounds confused for the first time tonight. "The black blood has been stopped somehow."

With the encroaching black wavelength gone, Stein can see down the corridor, and with Medusa momentarily distracted he can focus down the distance to where Maka and Soul are stopped, wavelengths tiny but bright next to the...it *must* be the Demon Sword's meister, but Stein hasn't properly sensed its soul wavelength before now. It's a pinpoint, small and shaky next to Maka's and her weapon's, but bright in its own right for the first time he's ever seen.

"The fight between Maka and the Demon Sword at the second barrier has ended," Stein offers. "I can feel both of their souls beginning to relax now."

*And Maka?* Spirit asks instantly. *Is my darling daughter alright?*

"She is," Stein says absently. The scene is resolving itself as he watches it, Maka's wavelength untangling from the sword meister's where they were overlaid. The new wavelength is steadying, the violent trembling slowing to a shiver instead of a shake. "It looks like she was able to grasp onto the Demon Sword's wavelength somehow. The sword meister's wavelength is stabilizing."

The wavelengths in his vision flicker; for a moment Stein thinks the sword meister's is going out again, collapsing in as it did in Italy, but then his vision goes dark entirely and he realizes it's his Perception that is failing. Not failing; just swamped, its focus on the smaller, weaker wavelengths overruled by a larger. It presses into him like a weight, reaching past his eyes for his mind until he recoils, shuts off Soul Perception entirely in an attempt to escape it. The weight lifts slightly, but he can still hear it, or maybe that's sensation, like a breath against the back of his neck.

"Those are good students you have," Medusa is saying. "They did well, didn't they? They've completed almost every single assignment you've given them today. But you can sense it too, can't you?" and he realizes what it is, what the weight and the darkness and the sensation is, what it is that has been greasing across the surface of his thoughts since they passed the entryway and came down under the Academy, just a moment before the witch finishes. "It appears the Kishin's madness has begun to overflow."

If the Kishin is that active, that close to awakening, they don't have much time left at all. Stein crouches low so his and Spirit's combined center of mass is stable, balanced on the balls of his feet.

"Here we go, Spirit. Are you ready?"

He doesn't have to ask. Spirit is as ready as Stein himself is, leaning forward in anticipation of the combat that is finally, *finally* about to break over them, his soul wavelength warm and expansive and malleable against Stein, ready to be shaped into whatever the meister needs. It helps. The glow chases back some of the rising shadows at the corner of the room, the added support helps push off some of the lingering weight. And when Spirit says *Yeah* the vibration of his voice is soothing like the pace of a heartbeat at night.

The witch has time to center herself as well, though. Her vector-arrow tail reemerges, stabs hard into the ground under her. That is going to be a problem. "It won't do you any good now," she offers helpfully. "Say, tell me something. How *do* you raise a good child?"

Even this jab doesn't get a reaction from Spirit; Stein is pretty sure his weapon is tuning her out completely in an effort to sidestep the emotional taunting she is offering. He is impressed.

"We're running out of time," he says aloud. The sound of his voice helps to drown out the last of the sound in the back of his head, the whisper that is neither memory nor Spirit. "We need to get Medusa out of the way and catch up with the others to stop the Kishin from reviving."

*Yep.* Stein lunges forward, leading with Spirit as he closes to within striking distance of the witch, but Medusa dodges easily aside from his mostly-experimental swing.

Her laugh comes from around him; he tries to turn, to correct, but she's moving too fast. "Got you!" she gloats as her foot comes in towards his face. He's more ready this time - he learned from her last attempt - but she is *fast*, and he barely gets his free hand up to catch the impact on his wrist. Even then his balance is off, and he has to stumble backwards from the hit to regain his equilibrium.

She doesn't give him a chance to recover. Stein is still trying to regain his footing when the arrows come streaking towards him, and it is only Spirit's shouted warning - *Here she comes!* - that lets him bring the scythe around to temporarily disable the attack.

The witch veers in, angled steeply forward to take advantage of the balance of her arrow tail. Stein swings at her, hits air. He turns back towards her, tries again, and comes up with just as little resistance as she closes with him. Her hands land on his shoulders, the contact startling him back to the wide-eyed panic of childhood for a moment so for a breath he is gasping up at the tableau of her self-satisfied grin poised over him. He tries to hit again as she comes down, but all his instincts are saying she should be falling, should be tipping to recover her balance, and the arrow still fixed to the ground is undermining all his expectations. She is chuckling, not even breathing hard, arms crossed to emphasize how easy this is for her while she inverts herself out of reach of his standard technique.

*No matter how she twists and turns, the snakes under her always keep her balanced,* Stein considers. It is hard to think with that creak at the back of his mind, with his thoughts skidding slick against his reason as his skin beads with sweat from unfamiliar exertion. *This woman leaves no openings. What now?*

When Spirit's voice comes in it takes Stein a minute to realize it's *actually* Spirit, not the illusion in his head. But the tone has a depth to it his invention lacks and the words lack the anticipated information of his own head, and besides all that he can feel Spirit's wavelength bleeding over into his own if he looks for it. *Medusa hasn't made any attempts at all to put an end to this fight. She's just trying to buy time by keeping us occupied here.*

Stein takes a deep breath, heaves a sigh as he shuts his eyes. *She's an intuitive witch. She probably knows that I won't be able to defeat her if my head is full of *disturbing* thoughts.*

The room is full of noise. The walls are shifting, the witch's breathing is echoing off the columns, the scythe, even Stein himself, and the darkness behind his eyelids is flickering green-red-gold, almost-memories going by too fast to form. Stein breathes, slow, deep, lets the sound of his lungs filling wash over him. The sound of the surroundings fades to a buzz, a hum, a whisper. He can still hear the whine, the infection of the Kishin just above audible, but it's fading too. Breathe. Deeper. Slower. His shoulders relax, his body goes loose with lack of focus, but it's at a distance. Finally there's just his breathing, the darkness in his head, the flicker of Spirit, and that faint hiss of raw madness.

If there's only one way to get rid of the contamination, he'll do it. Right now it's not as hard to consider, as distant as he already is. There's just a flicker of regret, the trailing edge of a distant forgotten fear, and then he drops into that pool of silence, and even Spirit is gone.


	19. Reminiscence

There is silence spreading out from Stein's thoughts. It's not just that he's quiet in that way he gets, like he's absorbing whatever information Spirit is offering or lost in his own reflections. This is active, seeping out from where his quick-shifting reason usually sits, slowing Spirit's own mental processes like it's infecting him with lethargy.

*Stein, what's going on with you?* Spirit asks, more to interrupt the creeping quiet than anything else. *It seems like you're losing your edge. What happened to that ominous "I'll kill you" vibe you used to give off?*

He's trying to provoke some sort of reaction, gently teasing the meister to work up a half-laugh or a cutting retort, but the silence doesn't even shift other than to swallow up the ripples of his own voice. Spirit can feel the movement of Stein's arm coming a long way off, predicated by the twitch of muscle fibers and the slow-slow thought drifting up to the surface before he raises his arm as if to hold Spirit off. "Quiet, Spirit," he says aloud. The words are clear in his mouth but fuzzy in his head, like some separate part of him is speaking so he doesn't have to interrupt his thought process. "That's exactly what I'm trying to work on right now."

The next words rise up from the unfamiliar serenity in Stein's head, spreading over the surface like they were created fully-formed from the distant introspection of that pool, and Spirit understands that they are not intended for him at all. *I'm paying too much attention to everything that's going on around me. I need to get rid of irrelevant thoughts.* Like Spirit himself, apparently. He would be offended if he weren't so busy being intrigued and repulsed simultaneously. This is entirely alien; the voice over those thoughts is unmistakably Stein's, but it is stripped of all the warmth that has ever made him sound human, lacking the tonalities of affectionate tolerance that have filled in the gaps in his words every time he speaks to Spirit.

*What drives me is curiosity,* it goes on, and Spirit feels oddly guilty, like he's playing the voyeur to this internal monologue of a meister who has entirely distanced himself from Spirit's existence. *I always do my best work when the subject at hand *intrigues* me. *That's* what I need to focus on.* Spirit can feel more than see the tension go slack in that upraised arm, can sense the witch in front of them with abrupt clarity as Stein focuses in on her instead of his body. The meister's mouth slips into an unintended frown as that attention draws all of his energy away from Spirit, from his thoughts, from his body itself. His breathing is perfectly in time with Spirit's; the weapon wonders momentarily if Stein would remember to breathe at all if he didn't have an easy lead to follow.

Deliberate action comes back piecemeal, patterning along Stein's neck while leaving his arm, face, shoulders untouched. He snaps his head to the left, so fast that the resulting crack of the joint makes Spirit flinch.

*The tension is starting to leave his body,* Spirit notes to himself, just for the sake of giving something to offset the oppressive quiet of Stein's head. The sound is hollow in his thoughts, like he's talking to a wall instead of to a silent listener, and Spirit would never have thought he could tell the difference until this moment. It's like Stein is deliberately shutting him out, blocking him away in an ignored corner of the meister's brain so Spirit can look but not touch. It's not as lonely as his own thoughts alone, but it's a close thing.

Stein's head falls forward, hangs loose for a moment before swinging right and then up, another click of joint cracking accompanying it before he goes left again, twisting like he's aiming for a third crackle but not quite finding it. His eyes are still shut, his face relaxed into deliberately calm lines. He has been tense, very tense; the gunshot-fire of his neck popping speaks to that better than any expression could, and the eerie slackness to his face now says he is lost in himself more even than the silence in Spirit's window to his thoughts.

*He may be the DWMA's greatest meister, but he's an easy guy to read if you know what to look for,* Spirit observes, but the offhand compliment doesn't get a reaction either. He knew it wouldn't. That's there to see too, in the shut eyes deliberately closing off outside feedback and the droop to Stein's shoulders and the softness at his mouth.

When Stein speaks again, the tone is harsh, at odds with the languid angle of his body, and soaked through with emotion that Spirit recognizes all along the pattern scarred into his own chest. It's that strange combination of desire and violence from their last few Resonance battles as partners, the bloody *need* that left stitches across Spirit's skin and Stein in self-imposed exile. It's been missing since Stein came back, Spirit realizes, and there is just time for a pang of irrational hurt at the loss of that almost-flattering desire before his common sense overrides the reaction.

"What is it I want to do, you ask?" Stein's free hand comes up to grip the screw protruding from his hair. When he turns it Spirit can *feel* the movement, jarring his teeth even at the imposed distance he is at, and the silence in Stein's head *roils*, bubbling and churning and forming into something coherent and silent and deadly. The screw clicks into place and Spirit appreciates the cessation of that awful buzz and notes as something to worry about later the fact that the screw goes *right through* Stein's *head* and apparently *affects* his *brain* and how did he *get* it there? "I would think it obvious."

Medusa stiffens in response to the raw predatory tone in Stein's voice now. The darkness inside the meister's head curves into shapes and forms too fast for Spirit to process, bodies and outlines of various creatures, breathing or moving or dead or in pieces, and this is more clarity to Stein's Madness than he has ever seen before but it's not directed at him this time, and that helps him stay a little bit removed.

*It's obvious you're a sadistic man, Stein,* and the words are harsh but the tone is gentle, even in Spirit's own head where his meister isn't listening and there is no one to ever remember but himself. It doesn't make any sense, that the last time he felt this he cringed away and now he wants to comfort, but between the years apart and his own self-imposed loneliness and the scars and the screw and the evidence of Stein's own damage the idea of leaving the meister on his own is impossible to fathom, not when he clearly *needs* someone like Spirit's never been needed by anyone else.

Stein opens his eyes, brings his head up. His balance is off, head tilted sharply to one side so his silver hair falls across his face and only one eye catches the light, and his smile is just as bad, cutting across his face in a lopsided gash composed of sadistic pleasure and too-sharp teeth. "I want to dissect," he says, and the words echo clear inside the space of his head with the weight of perfect accuracy, stones thrown into that pool of introspective silence.

Medusa laughs, and Spirit thinks she's misjudged this, and then she speaks and he *knows* she has. "Oh, *Stein.* You're so *adorable.*"

It's not that she will push Stein into further violence - he's already operating at maximum. But her attempt to do so says she has wildly misjudged this conversation, isn't correctly reading the signs Stein is all but shouting to Spirit's hearing, and when the meister grins in reaction it catches the weapon's mouth too, dark amusement borrowed from a mind much less moral that Spirit's own. *Yeah,* Spirit thinks to himself, and he's not sure if he's just filling the gap in his thoughts or agreeing with Medusa on some distant level. *I almost forgot it's my job to control this headcase. What's this fool up to now?*

Stein can't hear the insults, or won't remember them; he's gone, lost inside his own madness. But even so they come out layered with nostalgia, turning the twist of negativity into tolerant diminutives inside Spirit's thoughts. This is easy to remember, back when things were simple between them, before Stein cut Spirit open and before Spirit found out how Stein felt and before Spirit began to put together how he felt himself. It was *easy*, when Stein didn't care about anything but himself, when he was shorter and smaller than his weapon and Spirit wiped blood from his face and tried to keep him from full-blown sadism.

Medusa is still talking, still pushing an argument she doesn't realize she's lost. "I'll say it again, Professor Stein. Join my experiment."

Stein laughs at that, so softly Spirit's not sure Medusa hears at all, and she keeps talking. "This static, unchanging world doesn't suit you. You were made for better than this. You're a scientist, after all. We can harness the power of the Kishin together. We'll change the world back to what it *should* be. A place where evolution and progress always reign."

Stein responds this time, his voice strained with tension or perhaps anticipation, and as he begins speaking the distance in his mind evaporates so the eerie curl of unfamiliar desire is lacing around Spirit's thoughts, not bleeding into them but caressing over the surface. It is nauseating and blackly pleasurable, plugging into the nightmare memories of blood and broken bones and the death Spirit has sown as a weapon and turning them hot with sadistic satisfaction. "A long time ago. I was analyzed by a group of foolish doctors who feared my violent tendencies and what they considered my selfish attitude." He runs forward towards Medusa, feet shifting with no conscious thought from his brain besides the desire to break, to hurt, to cut. Spirit catalogues the sensations - it helps to keep them separate from his own. "They seemed elated while they were *studying* me." Stein moves, his unformed *want* controlling his muscles as much as Spirit does, the two of them swinging left, right, up. Medusa dodges without any particular appearance of concern. "As if they were solving the crime in a mystery novel, they *theorized* for *hours* wondering if something had traumatized me in my past. Or if some terrible influence had come into my *life.*" Stein is talking as he moves, slashing wildly and hitting nothing but air, but Spirit is watching, noting Medusa's pattern of movement in response to their half-deliberate attacks. The witch juts her left hand straight at Stein's face but he's reflex-quick to respond, plugged directly into his instincts, and those bring him backward while Spirit comes up between them to catch the blow and force Medusa's hand back. Stein yells, raw energy and excitement at the fight as he forces her back with his extra bodyweight; with the extra space he swings the end of Spirit's handle around toward her face with a laugh that is nothing as much as a cackle. The impact against Medusa's forearms shakes through Spirit, a jolt but painless for that, while Stein continues. "That was all nonsense, though. I've loved tearing things apart from the very beginning."

"What's your point, Stein? Are you trying to compare *me* to these doctors?" Medusa shoots three arrows towards Stein; they hit with their earlier force, but the meister steps back, giving ground with no sign of retreat rather than letting himself be knocked backward.

"When I was in kindergarten it made me *nauseous* watching the other kids as they listened dutifully to the teacher and played games." Stein's voice is raw with emotion; the tone holds more of Spirit's attention than the words do, and even then it's not much. Spirit is doing his best to hold off the bloodlust, to keep his grip on his self coherent rather than getting swallowed up in the desire pouring through him. "I would almost puke just from the sight of everyone focusing unquestioningly on the chalkboard while they took their notes. Not an original thought in their heads."

"What kind of story is this, anyway?" Medusa asks, still smiling. "It's entirely pointless, not to mention *boring.* Makes *me* wanna puke."

A new set of arrows comes forward towards them. Stein slashes and misses the first one, but defensive parries prove more effective; the second two attacks strike off Spirit's handle as Stein surges forward, closing the distance between himself and Medusa. His movements are erratic, his balance angling sharply from side to side, but they have the graceful flow of skill underpinning them. It's comfort in his body, not a struggle with gravity, that brings him fluidly forward. Spirit feels the stop coming a moment before the meister sets his left foot and swings the scythe towards the base of Medusa's tail with a yell. She brings it up just in time to miss the hit, curling into a spin in midair before landing again behind them. Stein is pivoting before she lands, Spirit swinging towards her face, but a web of those purple-lined arrows stops him like a wall, catching the sharp edge inches from her face.

The proximity to a weapon notwithstanding, the witch's eyes are shut, and her voice is bored. "Are you *mocking* me? If you hate unoriginality so much, why are your attacks so *tiresome*? *Really.* I'm sleeping here."

"Now now, be more patient. This is my answer to your invitation, so you should *listen.*" Stein's hands are steady on Spirit's handle, the blade trembling against the web from the force they are both exerting. "My feelings didn't change, as I matured and grew stronger the madness inside of me, the desire to *dissect* did too. Do you know what it was that eventually stopped me?"

"It was *fear.*"

Medusa sounds sure of herself, like there is no other possible answer. Spirit is about to roll his eyes - Stein's not afraid of *anything* - when the answer comes. "*Yes.* I was *terrified.*" He sounds delighted. Spirit looks away from the enemy, up at his meister's face, too shocked to remember where he is for a moment. "Terrified of the person I might become." His eyes go wider, his smile brighter. Something presses in on the darkness in his mind, forming the edges into a boundary instead of a spreading infection. "Even though all that mattered to me in the end was that I had fun and could do *whatever* I wanted. *That's* when I learned that I needed someone in control." The control is increasing. It's not Spirit, for once; Stein is reigning *himself* in, collecting himself into reasonable levels. And there are memories there too, bright and flickering too fast to understand, overheated skin and bloody fingerprints and a murmuring voice at the edge of hearing. "Not a greedy despot who would rule with tyrannical disregard for the wants and needs of others." Stein lifts his left hand to hover over Spirit's handle and the memories coalesce into that same familiar moment of abandonment and want and hurt all together. "But the rule of a *god*, one who reigned without ego."

"If you hate this world so much, why not join me? We can change the world together."

Stein makes a fist, smiles. It is a real smile this time, the shape all Spirit's expression across his meister's face. "That's *your* ego talking now, isn't it?"

"No. But following one's own ego will become the standard before long. A standard you too will follow."

Stein brings his hand forward, lets his Soul Force crush the vector shield into nothing. Spirit swings forward, catches air, and Stein turns to swing again. Medusa dodges, twisting to land on her feet just as Stein comes back around to swing his fist towards her. Her fingers catch his, the weight smacking into her palm audibly, and before Spirit can get Stein to retreat and free his hand the witch's left hand comes forward to dig into Stein's stomach. The pain bursts bright and sharp over into Spirit's head, so strong that even with the buffer of another person's head Spirit folds over in sympathetic agony. Stein makes an awful sound, wet and choking far back in his throat, and when he coughs blood there is a voice screaming shrill with uncontrolled panic, Stein's name grating over terrified vocal chords, and all Spirit can think is *No no no no NO* as if he can prevent reality by sheer force of refusal, as if his shock can fight off the suddenly real possibility of losing Stein, again, permanently this time, just after he got him back again.


	20. Losing

"This is my answer to your invitation, so you should *listen.*" The last word grates vicious over Stein's tongue. He lets it. Kindness is only worth the effort in specific situations, and this is not one of them. The scythe in his hands is shaking against the force of the vector web holding it, but his hands are perfectly steady on the handle, as if it is as much an extension of his body as it has always felt. "My feelings didn't change, as I matured and grew stronger the madness inside of me, the desire to *dissect* did too." His memories are hazy from that far back, red-washed with bloodlust and destructive desire and aimless sadism. "Do you know what it was that eventually stopped me?"

"It was *fear.*"

He is impressed by her insight. It took him years to realize what motivated him, what had pulled him around into the shaky semblance of morality he clings to now. That emotion leeches over into his voice too, the force of his thoughts too strong to be turned aside at this point. "*Yes.* I was *terrified.*" Pleasure sparks dark in his memories, the recollection of fear interesting and satisfying even when turned around on himself. "Terrified of the person I might become." He can see it in possibility, his younger self grown stronger and faster and more deadly but without the guiding influence of the weapon in his hands, the separate thoughts in his head. Even now Spirit is holding him back, shaping his unfettered darkness into productive violence against the enemy. "Even though all that mattered to me in the end was that I had fun and could do *whatever* I wanted. *That's* when I learned that I needed someone in control." Memory shifts fast over years of partnership, the unfamiliar pressure of want under his skin and jealousy crushing him into humanity, the need to be *better* for Spirit driving him into an order that never held any appeal before. "Not a greedy despot who would rule with tyrannical disregard for the wants and needs of others." Not that Spirit has ever been that. Spirit has never even *known* what he is to Stein, probably doesn't even know now. The memory of that first Soul Force rises easily along the mental grooves of habit, sparks bright under Stein's skin as he lifts his left hand. "But the rule of a *god*, one who reigned without ego."

"If you hate this world so much, why not join me?" the witch offers. She hasn't been listening. "We can change the world together."

When he closes his fingers around his palm, the electricity feeds back on itself, sparkling warm against his skin like he is borrowing Spirit's ever-present flush. "That's *your* ego talking now, isn't it?"

"No. But following one's own ego will become the standard before long. A standard you too will follow."

He wishes the draw didn't exist, that giving in to the siren call of his instincts didn't resonate so strongly with his desires, amplifying the static screech against his skull until he can almost make out words. It doesn't matter, though. There's another Resonance, even and stable from the weapon in his hands, and he made his decision years ago.

The memory crackles through his palm, and he slams it forward against the vector web to burst through the shield. The vectors shatter, freeing Spirit, and Stein swings immediately, once, twice. The witch dodges, coming up through the air to avoid the blade, and lands on her feet just as he swings forward with his left hand. Her fingers close around his fist and stop it dead; he didn't account for her strength, and in the moment it takes him to process the additional force needed to break free she brings her right hand forward to dig into his stomach.

There is pain instantly, bright and blinding and if he were holding any other weapon his grip would fail in the first wave of shocked agony. He doesn't have time to pull back from the hurt; it pours across to Spirit too as he tries to inhale, sucks in blood and coughs and chokes on the unexpected liquid. Some part of his mind is focused on breathing, on obtaining air to ensure short-term survival, and the cold rational part is calculating the likelihood of permanent damage, the possibility of surviving this, the rate at which he is losing blood.

*STEIN!* Spirit's voice is shrill and raw with pure panic, all the emotional terror for Stein's survival that he can't muster himself, and an entirely inappropriate desire to laugh adds itself to the desperate animal fight to breathe and the entirely inhuman calculations.

The witch laughs low, pulls back, and Stein's legs fold under him with no conscious decision to do so. *That was bad, you're bleeding *more* now,* his calculations produce, and his throat ejects more blood and groans against the pain as if it will help.

*You can't attack without thinking. She'll keep striking you down if you do.* Spirit's voice is steadier now, quiet and almost gentle but stretched over a depth of agonized worry.

Stein doesn't respond. He can barely stabilize his breathing enough to speak clearly, and the psychological advantage of seeming less injured than he is outweighs the doomed attempt to offer futile comfort to the weapon sharing his head. He braces himself on a shaking arm against the floor. "If this new standard you're talking about does come to pass, what will control my dark side then?" He forces his head up, opens one eye to glare at the witch looking down at him. "I could never join you in this."

Medusa lets her spinning vector dissipate. "I suppose there's no getting through to you," she sighs.

The pain is staggering, pulling at his rationality until it collapses under its own weight. Stein shuts his eyes, lets his dark side rise to the surface. The pain twists into motivation, a need for violent revenge surging through his body and dragging words from his throat as he stands, letting masochistic satisfaction trickle down his nerves. "I want to tear things apart without losing my soul!"

"So that's how you chose to use your madness, huh?" The witch comments. He barely hears her, doesn't comprehend the words, and then she extends her arms to spread arrows towards him. *That* he understands.

He is running on pure adrenaline now, the raging energy of a mortally injured creature. His feet kick him forward of their own volition, the electricity in his hand glows burning hot, and he only distantly registers the arrows tearing through his coat and shirt and skin as minor distractions.

"SOUL FORCE!" His hand connects solidly with its target, sinking past the fragile barrier of ribcage and muscle and vital organs to send its burst of electricity deep inside the witch's body.

She goes still and quiet, finally, coughs, spits blood. In the silence Spirit's voice is loud, the purr of satisfaction so strong for a moment Stein thinks this must be his own invented voice and not the real thing. *Got her.* Then he continues, and the miserable worry lacing over those words is something Stein could never conjure on his own. *But still. He took on *way* too much damage for just a single hit.*

"I think I've been overestimating you, Stein, " Medusa manages. The words are heavy with pain, choked around her injury, and still dismissive. Stein would be impressed if he could spare any attention for anything but breathing and standing. She drags her head up, the motion trembling with exertion. "That flimsy attack is all you could manage after turning down such a *gracious* invitation?" The arrow rising behind her lifts more smoothly, borne on magic rather than muscle. "It's all over. I think I'll remove your head now." That last is almost normal, drawn back toward humanity by the satisfaction under it.

"Spirit, listen, not a single move." The words are almost involuntary, meaningless on the surface, but the rush of desperate need under them is better carried verbally than inside Stein's head, where they would have to fight with the darkness that is the only thing keeping him upright.

He can feel Spirit jerk in surprise - how long has he been out of direct communication with the weapon? - but he is responding before he is even over his surprise, the distinction between them melting away like it barely existed at all. The pain recedes, part of a body that is a portion but not all of the whole, worry flooding in with the ease of sincerity instead of the struggle of learned habits, conversation melds into a monologue, and the approaching arrow stops just shy of artery.

"What the -!" It's the first time they've heard Medusa startled. "My tail snake stopped. I can't - move anything."

There is a pause before responding. His bleeding has stopped, the injury across the meister's stomach static, threaded shut like so much of their shared skin. Finally the meister speaks, very soft so the sounds barely vibrate across his throat. "Soul Thread. Diffusion Sutures."

"What are you *talking* about?" The witch spits. "You haven't even sewn my *body* to anything yet."

"Take a closer look." The same soft voice, careful enunciation. Everything is very still, quiet and peaceful with all the deliberation of necessity. "The threads are sewn throughout the inside of your body as well. I'm using them to block every nerve ending you have so you are *completely* paralyzed."  
"What are you *waiting* for?" she hisses. "Why don't you kill me with a hit from your *scythe* friend there? You're running out of time, remember?"

It takes a moment to make sense of her question, to realize that she is referring to the weapon-form as separate from the meister-form, and distraction makes it hard to separate the external voice from the internal monologue. *Controlling such an enormous wavelength takes total concentration. Focusing on that requires all of my energy. I can't move a single finger.*

"This is pathetic, even for a last-ditch effort. Are you improvising, or is this how you *always* like to fight?" The words are distant, unimportant. The two consciousnesses settle into calm, breathing slow and unhampered by injuries, if only temporarily.

"What's your plan?" the witch prods again. "A wild-west shootout the instant you release these threads? Don't you see how *pointless* it is? My snake is already at your neck, it will lop your head off before your scythe *even* has a chance to touch me. I somehow doubt that wavelength control of this magnitude can last for very long. Think about it. As soon as it's released, you will die. And the Kishin will be reborn at last. You don't stand a chance against me now."

He doesn't bother answering. The words barely have any meaning right now, are nearly drowned out by the steady pattern of breathing, and have no impact on his emotional state at all. There is just the waiting, and the patience.

A thought rises to the surface, the words slow and calm in spite of their meaning. *This is a gamble. And the odds are stacked against us. We can't hold this forever. The only way to beat Medusa is to take the offense somehow and strike at her.* An acknowledgment of the situation, not a criticism.

*We've come this far. We're just a step away. But the moment those sutures come undone the fight will start all over again.* Similarly calm, not a response so much as an extension of the first comment. *And as Medusa said, I'm likely to be the loser. Her tail is pointed at my throat, just a hair's breadth away from beheading me.* The words should have panic in them. There is nothing, just the floating peace of this-moment-now, eternally relaxed in perfect synchronization. *But right now I can't seem to picture myself being defeated.*

Something else is rising up, a tendril of forgotten desire. It threads along the line between the previously separated consciousnesses, outlining the distinction, and when the next thought comes Stein can identify it as his *own.* *All I can imagine is dismembering that witch, dissection is what I do best!*

The Resonance *quavers*, vibrating like a rung bell. Everything goes still with joint panic. The shared emotion stabilizes the tremor, absorbs the ripples until weapon and meister are back in harmony. Stein and Spirit reconnect, slide past each other into the singular again, and then back out just barely, a careful tip so Spirit can open one eye to glare at Stein.

*Don't *do* that.* It's not words so much as an impression washing over both of them. The separation fades away again, and then the conclusion to the earlier thought comes.

*My only chance is to roll the dice and hope I win!*

Time passes. Each breath is a lifetime, every heartbeat years in the making, shared oxygen and pulsing blood between two forms. Even when the ceiling begins to crumble and the floor trembles underneath them, it doesn't disrupt the balance; there is just a joint curiosity, focus returning to the external world from the flow of internal processes.

*What's...happening?* The thought is slow to form. *What is that?* Faster that time, quicker to take in the dust raining down and the vibrations underfoot.

Shadows sweep up the corridor. The room goes dark, backlit by red that forms into vertical eyes and bright-lit teeth. A slow smile, turning towards them, and a crushing wavelength buffeting their Resonance like wind. Images swirl in the shadows, too dark to see but clear to sense - blood, violence, sharp-edged knives and stabbing points, burbling laughter and the sob of tears, pain and amusement and fear fear FEAR, crippling and cold all across skin and spine and bone.

The darkness fades but the borrowed images linger like afterimages, sounds half-heard over a shoulder and unshakeable nightmare scenes upon waking.

*The Kishin's Madness is overflowing.* There is nothing else that could have been but the Madness wavelength, rushing up from its eternal prison. *That means…* Well. Less than eternal, it seems. *Kid's crew couldn't stop them.*

The witch begins to laugh, still frozen by the sustained Resonance but chuckling nonetheless, pleasure warm under the sound.

*The Kishin is reviving.* The sounds are crackling loud, then soft, waxing and waning in volume and all at different rates, a cacophony that threatens to drown out even their internal monologue. The declaration is almost unnecessary with that evidence, but it helps take the edge off the horrifying realization. It helps a little. *We couldn't stop it.*

The witch laughs again, pausing only to declare, "It looks like you kiddies failed. The taste of victory is very sweet," before letting satisfaction sweep her throat into something like hysteria, uncontrolled satisfaction at a plot gone right.

The scream that tears from the meister's throat is a reaction, not a plan; it rises high and shrieking until it drowns out the witch's laughter, drowns out the sound of collapsing masonry, drowns out the internal screech of those invasive voices, and the urge to kill swings high with it, hatred and violence and bloodlust spiking high until the threads throughout the witch tear free with the loss of attention. The Resonance remains, swapping their bodies so when the scythe swings free at last it is Stein who feels the splash of blood over the blade, Stein whose sharp edge shears through skin and bone without a tremor of resistance. And then they are still, and the fight is over, and Spirit is himself and Stein is back in his body. His mouth is smiling, eyes half-shut in satisfaction. He can hear the sound of vectors bouncing off the floor to rise against the force of gravity towards the ceiling from the broken skin of the witch.

Spirit's voice comes, separate again and stiff with shock. *We did it. I don't believe it.* He is wide-eyed even in his weapon form, still holding the position he had throughout their Resonance.

Stein slowly straightens, fighting past the force of his injuries, now bleeding again with the dissipation of the Soul Thread. The scythe feels heavier than it has ever been before; when he drops it to the floor it lands with a thunk loud enough to hear over the voices and the wet drip of blood-vectors.

The wiggling, hovering arrows burst free as if this motion has shaken them loose, spray high before they coalesce into droplets of blood and fall like rain on meister and weapon both. Stein turns to the torn body of the enemy and laughter surges up his throat, vicious and pleased even through the agony the motion inflicts on his body. Everything is very distant right now: his body, the situation, even Spirit against his palm. The blood collects against the top of his head, drips across his scalp and into his hair to color it the same color as his weapon's. Stein is glad that Spirit isn't seeing what he is, that the weapon is somewhat buffered from this almost-certainly-a-hallucination.

"Disappointing, isn't it?" His voice is soft now, slow and languid with a release of tension. His last cigarette is still in his inside pocket; he fishes it out, shifts the scythe-handle to his shoulder so he can hold the cigarette in one hand and find a match with the other. "The moment you were certain you had won, your blind elation gave me the opening I needed to defeat you." He cups his hand carefully over the flame as he brings the match to the end of the paper. The illusory blood rain *probably* won't put out the *probably* real flame, but no sense in taking chances. "It's ironic really. I only won because of the Kishin." Inhale the hot smoke, pull the cigarette away, tip face up to the warm damp rain. The smoke curls around the droplets when he exhales. "But now the demon has revived."

He can feel Spirit's misery, his rising guilt and the crushing sense of failure, but they are very far off. There is something important, something he is losing with every breath he takes, but the sound in his head is too loud to think around and even the sharp pain zigzagging over his body is hard to pay attention to.

"So in the end, I lose." He is losing more than he can remember, but everything that was who he used to be is going to disappear soon enough, now that the Kishin is back. It's not like any of the breathtaking misery will matter soon. He wonders if it will matter long enough for the danger of his injuries to be worth treating. There's no point in fighting it now.

"But still." He spreads his arms wide, tips his face up towards the ceiling, and when he speaks again his words are *full* of emotion, bloody as his skin and satisfied as his smile. "I have to admit destroying you was *refreshing*!"

The rain is warm on his skin as he starts to laugh.


	21. Standing

Spirit doesn't transform back to human form at the end of the fight. Mostly this is because he is so dizzy that the addition of a human stomach will absolutely result in vomiting, and also because he is so tired he's not sure he could stand up on his own, and also because he can't Resonate with Stein in human form. This last isn't useful at the moment, hasn't been useful since the Kishin's madness crashed over them and shattered their Resonance and Stein dissolved into manic laughter, but Spirit can't help in human form and he *could* be useful as he is. Eventually.

It takes what feels like hours and is probably a few minutes. The world is spinning, even at the distance he has from it, and Spirit is relatively sure it's not the aftershocks of the Kishin's revival rolling through the building. There are whispers at the back of his head, although they decreased dramatically in volume when his Resonance with Stein broke, and even when he holds perfectly still he can see *things* moving just at the edges of his periphery. He tried to watch them for a while, but that just made him feel dizzier, and then he tried shutting his eyes but that just made the voices louder, so finally he curls in over himself as best he can in a form that doesn't obey his physical orders and lets his eyes go unfocused and tries to ignore the hallucinations while he waits for Stein to come back.

The focus helps. Having something else to pay attention to has always helped, and right now it is easier to worry about the meister, about the darkness that swallowed him up just before Spirit lost contact with him and the wounds that are slowly seeping blood into his clothes and the shrill edge of panic to that laugh. It has always been easy to worry about Stein. Even the seriousness of the situation loses the worst of its effect in the familiarity of the emotion, and it is easy to forget that Stein's injuries could very easily kill him when the resignation to taking care of his meister, *again*, is so strong in Spirit's head.

Spirit can't make himself reach out for Resonance just now. He caught the edge of what Stein is seeing for a moment, blood over his face and dripping sticky through his hair and warm as a touch on his skin, and Spirit's stomach tried to turn itself inside-out and he had to retreat, pull back into his own mind and try to forget what is pulling that laugh out of Stein's throat.

*It's not like it really matters,* he admits to himself. *We've already failed.*

The magnitude of the result still hasn't hit him. He keeps trying to explain it to himself, review the fallout from the Kishin's revival - the Madness that will spread across the world, the very real possibility of the apocalypse, the impossibility of fighting such an enemy - but he can't comprehend the range of the effects. Listing them out just makes him feel numb and cold; it's the trivial pieces that cut. The judgement he will face from everyone at the Academy for his failure as a Death Scythe. The possible punishments Lord Death could give him for his lapse. Maka's childhood sacrificed on the altar of a worldwide threat. The Madness's effect on Stein, the separation already as solid as a wall between them. It's been his job to protect Stein from himself since they were children, even before Spirit himself realized the responsibility. He's already failed once and now he's failing again, he can't fix this no matter how he wants to. It would be suicide of his self if not in physical fact to fall into whatever has a hold on Stein now. He wishes that option didn't sound as distantly appealing as it does.

Stein fades back in so slowly that Spirit isn't sure that he's returning for several minutes. He doesn't know how long things have been improving when he first thinks there might be a difference, and it takes long, breathless minutes of intent watching before he is sure he has seen an improvement and can confirm it even after taking his own desperation into account. Then Stein sighs in his head, and the sound is all Spirit's meister in spite of the exhaustion under it. He takes another inhalation off the cigarette in his mouth, and when he tosses it aside Spirit is shocked that it is only half-burnt. It feels like it has been hours.

"It looks like Lord Death and the Kishin were fighting it out up here." Stein says. He must be using Soul Perception; Spirit can't see anything. Even the tremors in their surroundings have faded, and at the distance they are from the surface the aboveground sounds fade to white noise. "But the Madness seems to be fading," and it has; the hints of movement are gone when Spirit looks for them, and his head has been free of everything but self-deprecation for some time. Stein's thoughts are clearer too, slow and heavy but recognizable again, tied down by the meister's own control.

Spirit reaches out for Resonance without speaking. Stein doesn't respond, narrows his eyes at whatever he is seeing that Spirit isn't. "He got away."

It is not that Spirit expected anything else, not really, but some part of him was hoping desperately that Lord Death would be able to take care of the danger, stop Asura before he fully broke free onto the world. He flinches back from the knowledge that all hope really *is* lost, but it doesn't stop the understanding from hitting him, pulling hot against his throat with the promise of tears, as if that will help anything now.

"I wish I could have seen it," Stein says, still lost in his own thoughts.

*If only I'd stayed by Lord Death's side like I'm supposed to.* The words sound dangerously close to a sob, catch on the knot in Spirit's throat no matter what he does. He forces back the tears, looks down at the cracked floor. *Then we could have stopped him.* Stein's face pulls his face back up; there is some comfort to be gained from the exhausted calm in the meister's expression, from the support of another person at his side. *Things turned out horrible. And what's worse everyone'll blame me.*

"There's no use crying over spilled milk, Spirit." Stein's voice hums through Spirit, gaining back some of the texture the fight sapped from it as he recenters himself. The reassurance is far more effective than it should be; Spirit shouldn't need someone else to tell him to calm down. What it *should* be has no effect on what it *is*, though. "Besides, this isn't over yet. If we can't figure out a way to make this right, we'll have a lot more problems than your ego."

Spirit is opening his mouth to retort that his *ego* has nothing to do with this when black arrows sweep around Stein, pinning his arms to his sides and locking him in place. There is a flood of surprise from the meister, more shock than fear, and both Stein and Spirit see Medusa's head raise over his shoulder a moment before she sinks her teeth into the meister's shoulder. Stein yells in surprise and pain, tries to pull free but can't get any traction against the constricting arrows around him.

*Stein!* It's not helpful, Spirit realizes as he shouts, but his panic doesn't allow for anything other than some sort of expression of his concern, and with Stein's arm locked against his sides there is nothing he can do to help. He realizes he could transform, offer physical support if not that of a weapon, just as Stein forces his left arm free and up to seize Medusa's hair. "Damn!" Stein hisses, more angry than upset. He drags her off - Spirit can feel the sympathetic pain in his shoulder before her hold gives way - and throws her back to the ground.

Medusa twists her head up to look at them and laughs, and Spirit is too repulsed to be horrified, which is a benefit at the moment. "I love you, you know," she says, and there is nothing but shock from both his own head and Stein's. "A man after my own heart."

Spirit has never before found the impact of blade against flesh satisfying. He does now, pinning Medusa to the floor like an insect so she won't *move* again, even if she refuses to die. Stein is holding him one-handed, his free hand holding the bite wound on his shoulder closed to stem the worst of the bleeding.

"Don't be *stupid.*" His words are laced with fury. "At your core, Medusa, you're just like me. You can't possibly understand a concept like love." The wave of self-loathing that boils through him is so strong it overwhelms Spirit's own rejection of the idea that *his* meister is *anything* like the witch in front of them.

Medusa just laughs, even as defeated as she is. What is left of her torso forms into arrows before dissolving. There isn't a body, not even a soul left behind.

*What kind of woman…* Spirit starts before he realizes that he has no idea how to finish the sentence. The current situation is inadequate but comes to mind easily, and he finishes *...would be willing to extinguish her own soul?* It's not enough, it doesn't touch on Crona or the black blood or Stein, but there aren't enough *words* to handle the others and the momentary burst of adrenaline from Medusa's final attack is taking the last of Spirit's strength with it too.

Stein opens his mouth as if he's going to answer. Then his hold on the scythe-handle slips for the first time all night, his weight comes fully over his own legs, and he crumples like all his injuries are hitting him at once. Spirit is back in human form before he means to be, surprised to find he has hands instead of a blade even as he is reaching too late to catch Stein from the floor.

"*Stein!*" The old barrier on physical contact is forgotten. Spirit is touching every part of Stein he can reach, hair, face, shoulder, waist, trying to heal a multitude of injuries via sheer desperation and fluttering hands. Stein's shoulder is bleeding the most at present, but it's not the worst wound. Spirit's total lack of first aid ability quails away from even properly *looking* at the torn cloth over the meister's stomach. It's absurd that Stein has stayed *conscious* as long as he has, really, but there's no way Spirit can get him back up to the infirmary alone. If there was just something he could *do* to *fix* this -

Stein's hand comes up to catch his, stalls the frantic movement. His skin is very cold, far colder even than what Spirit has become accustomed to from his meister, but his grip is firm enough to lock Spirit's hand in place. Spirit's fingers close around Stein's without him ever asking them to, and then he's not sure if Stein is holding him still or if he is clinging to Stein for support.

"Calm down, Spirit." Stein sounds awful, far worse than he did with Medusa in earshot, but there's a sweep of humor under the rough sound too. Spirit is crying, can't stop even when he smiles at that sound, and he thinks it's from relief that Stein is still able to talk but he can't tell anymore. There's too much all together, guilt and hurt and shame and relief and worry and panic, and the adrenaline is gone, leaving a sucking void of exhaustion where it was holding him together.

"You're *hurt*," Spirit starts.

"I *know.*" Very, very flat. Spirit starts to laugh. It turns hysterical almost immediately.

"Don't snivel," Stein says, "You're a grown man," but he is smiling, and it's affectionate and it is *strange* to see that on his face but something in Spirit responds to it, trickles warmth through his blood and determination into his brain.

"Okay." He nods, several times before he can control the movement, brings his free hand up to drag his sleeve over his eyes. "Yeah. Okay."

Stein reaches out towards Spirit's shoulder. When his hand closes over it Spirit's mind briefly contemplates the dozens of things that Stein *could* be about to do and how utterly impossible every one is. He still folds under the pressure when Stein pulls, curving in towards the meister although he has no idea what Stein is thinking.

Stein stops. "I need to sit up," he offers, and Spirit's whole face goes blisteringly hot.

"Oh. *Uh.* Yeah." He straightens, turns his head away while Stein pulls himself up. He really *does* need help, judging from the weight he is putting on his hold, and when Spirit's blush has faded enough to look back the meister is grimacing in pain.

"Fuck, Stein." The words lack any energy; they fall flat and tired. "We're never going to make it out of here at this rate."

"Shut up, Spirit." That lacks bite as well. Stein sighs, takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes. He is still holding Spirit's right hand in his left, his own right leaning heavily on his weapon's shoulder. This close Spirit can feel his exhale against his collar, can see the lines of pain all across his face, can see the evidence of habitual insomnia pressed blue and purple under Stein's eyes. It is terrifying to see his meister so *human*, even as the realization that *there is no one here but you* fires him with determination.

"Okay." Stein lets Spirit's hand go, shifts his grip to Spirit's opposite shoulder. His eyes are still shut. "I need you to pull me up."

"Okay." Spirit shifts to get his feet under himself, pushes hard. Stein weighs a lot more than he looks like he should, or Spirit is more tired than he thought, or both. It takes a painful minute to get them both upright, with Stein dragging Spirit down by his shoulders while Spirit tries to push Stein up by his elbows. They do make it after some struggle, although Stein is hissing in pain by the time they are upright and Spirit is shaking so badly he thinks they might go right back over in a second.

Stein takes a minute to rest his forehead against Spirit's shoulder, and Spirit determines that he is only going to topple over if he actually passes out. If will can keep Stein upright it can keep him on his feet too.

"Transform." Stein's voice is muffled against Spirit's shirt but the word is clear enough.

"What? No, you'll *fall*."

Stein shakes his head without lifting it. "You have to transform so we can Resonate or I won't *make* it to the infirmary." For the weight of the admission he sounds perfectly calm, like they are discussing the weather rather than the relatively mortality of his injuries.

Spirit tries to speak but his throat is closed up. His hands are against Stein's shoulders in something that would be a hug if he didn't have his fingers clenched into fists in the bloodstained fabric. "You'll be *fine.* I'll help you get there."

"Spirit." Stein lifts his head, opens his eyes. They are green and shadowed behind the pain and Spirit would look away if they weren't so bright. "Transform."

It's in his meister voice, but it doesn't matter. Spirit doesn't have any arguments left anyway. He transforms.

Stein does manage to stay upright for the moment he lacks support, although Spirit has no idea how he does so, but the moment his hand touches the handle he is saying "Resonate," without even waiting to steady his grip. Spirit is already reaching for it, flinging himself towards Stein's wavelength as fast as he can complete his transformation in spite of the lurking darkness that is still obscuring it.

It is colder than usual, colder and louder with the resurgence of some of those half-heard voices, but it's recognizably Stein's wavelength again and that takes all the terror off. Spirit realizes a moment before they Resonate that he's about to feel Stein's pain first-hand, but he doesn't have time to do anything but tense in anticipation before their awarenesses slide together.

It's *agonizing* to be upright. Some animal part of him is screaming to collapse, to stop STOP the pain however possible, and Spirit can't remember who he is or where he is or *anything* other than the pain, it would be better to die than to feel this, but there's more to him than *him* now, and the additional part is *very* good at distancing itself from its own body. It latches onto his memories, shoves him backwards into the past, rifles through his mind until it finds the details it needs. The Soul stitches don't hurt, even as they form, and they fend off the very worst of the mortal pain. Spirit leans against the scythe in his hands, all his weight against the handle for a minute while he gasps for air, and then he is the scythe instead, both and neither, and Stein is pleased, it has to be Stein because Spirit is definitely not.

*I don't understand,* he offers to himself as they begin moving. *How are you *upright*?*

Stein, in his body for the moment, chokes a laugh that is almost amused, slips into the weapon form before there is an answer. *You don't have to understand something to experience it.*

*That doesn't make any sense.*

*Don't worry about it.* Affection, warm and comforting even over the burn of pain and the chitter of unfamiliar voices, and Spirit can't identify the source but right now, for now, it doesn't matter which of them it is.


	22. Sacrifice

Stein doesn't see Spirit for weeks after the weapon leaves him in the infirmary for treatment. It's hard to watch him go, knowing how much they are leaving unresolved, knowing that Spirit probably intends to procrastinate their much-delayed conversation until a better time, knowing that the better time has already ceased to exist, that there will be nothing but worse and worse from here on out. Before he trusted to his own commitment and patience to create future possibilities. Now there is a constant buzz at the back of his head, not his own thoughts or Spirit's invented voice or even their tentative out-of-battle Resonance, and the static is proof that this is just the calm before the storm properly hits. Stein shuts his eyes and lets unconsciousness take him, because at least that way he doesn't have to face the inevitable decline of his Kishin-shadowed future.

He is in and out of consciousness for a few weeks; between the hazy state the pain medication leaves him in and that constant hiss when he's awake, it's easier to sleep through it, even though his dreams are worse than ever, vague and panicked and terrified. By the time Nygus lowers the medication level, he is desperate to take the pain instead, to blink calmly up at her and insist he feels fine just so he can avoid those nightmares.

They let him out after one more week. Stein's sure that Nygus suspects he's not sleeping much, that when she comes around to check on her patients she knows that he's lying still and breathing slow and wide awake, but the suspicion in her eyes isn't enough to merit drugging him further, and so he makes it out the door as clear-headed as he can be with the new addition to his internal chorus and a dull ache all across his stomach from the worst of his injuries.

Even with the pain and the murmurs he can feel Spirit's wavelength, the link stronger now than it was before the Kishin's release. It's for the best that it *is* stronger, at least for his purposes at the moment; he probably couldn't follow it through the maze that is the Academy if it were as unformed as it used to be. The Kishin's pseudo-Resonance would drown it out, leave him fully to his own devices, and while Stein *knows* that is coming inevitably all the self-sacrifice he can muster isn't enough to make him want to hurry the day.

Spirit is visibly flustered when Stein finds him, hair tied back with a white cloth and sleeves pushed up and Death-Scythe professionalism nowhere to be found. Stein stops short of actually touching him, short of where Spirit would hear him coming, but Spirit responds anyway, too distracted to realize the relevance of what he's sensing. "Need something?"

Stein needs a lot of things. He needs a partner, he needs sanity, he needs Spirit like he's never needed him before. Right now it would help just to have someone to lean against, to take some of the weight off his aching body. But Spirit can't help, not enough. The best he can do is delay Stein's own descent, and if he's too close when the true fall comes Stein will take him down with him. At best Spirit will end up as mad as Stein will be. At worst Stein will end up with Spirit's blood on his hands and not even realize what he's done, and right now that idea still holds a world of horror from his yet-intact rationality.

So Stein stays upright on his own, and stays where he is, and has a perfectly calm conversation with Spirit and acts perfectly normal while the chittering against his skull increases and his back starts to ache from compensating for his stitched-over stomach and he watches the relative expanse of Spirit's skin from those pushed-up sleeves and tries not to think about touching it, about wrapping his hands around the weapon's wrist and letting the heat of blood warm his cold-numb fingers.

He loses some of the middle of the conversation, drops out sometime in the corridor and comes back in in the middle of a sentence, explaining the effect of the Kishin's madness to an audience in the Death Room. He can't remember how he got there, can't remember the conversation up to that point, but his mouth is working on autopilot and it's easy enough to figure out what his topic is based on the words coming out of his throat. When Azusa asks for clarification he impresses himself with how calm he sounds. He does slightly less well with Marie; his mouth runs away with him, his lips curve into a grin without his consent, and he can feel Spirit's worry even without looking to see the concern against the edges of the weapon's eyes.

He does look anyway, just briefly, just skims his eyes over his weapon's - over *Spirit's* hair. It's too fast for Spirit to catch him at it, and then he can breathe again, modulate his voice back to even, go back to casual exposition instead of frenetic, panicked glee.

It is ultimately Azusa who wins his full attention, leaning in towards Spirit and jerking her thumb back to link Stein to the other man. "The reason we're in this situation is the blundering of *these* two idiots." Stein wants to argue - technically she is correct about where the fault lies, but there wasn't much blundering involved compared to the wave of catastrophe that they walked into. An actual mistake would have killed one or both of them. Of course at this point the distinction is academic. Stein will end up paying the price for the result regardless of whose fault it was, Stein and whoever is close to him.

"Lord Death, have you given any thought as to what should be done with them?" Azusa continues. Stein can't even muster the energy to get upset at Azusa's dismissal; whatever is coming is inevitable, there's no point in fighting it. Spirit, of course, flares up into defensive fury, jumping in to attack before his retort is fully formed.

"Why you little -!" he starts. He doesn't have the words to finish that sentence, although Stein has several he could offer if he could speak, but Lord Death cuts in.

"Y-es, about that." Spirit tenses and Stein tries to do the same without thinking, physically echoing his weapon's flinch with torn muscles. The pain is blinding, whiting out his attention for a moment while he tries to breathe evenly. By the time he can focus on the sound of words again, Spirit is reacting to something Stein missed, collapsed on the floor and dissolving into tears. It is mostly funny, distantly endearing, and Stein wants to laugh and wants to chastise Spirit and does neither.

Spirit's words are primarily incoherent and likely unimportant, choked out around sobs; it's easier to listen to Lord Death, talking fast to try to cut off the already-exploded emotion. "No, no, calm *down*, Spirit. You're still going to be my personal weapon."

Spirit is on his feet, tears evaporating into blissful relief, but Stein hears the second meaning under those words. It's not that he didn't expect this, after the Kishin's revival. It's for the best, even, that Spirit not be around when his wavering control inevitably falters. If he tells himself this enough he might start to believe it, might be able to fight off the sinking disappointment in his bones.

Lord Death is still talking, careless of Stein's internal monologue. The meister comes back into the conversation as his name comes up, and even his expectation of the words doesn't take all the edge off. "Recently, I've sent you off to serve as Stein's temporary weapon whenever he needed you. That will have to change. You must avoid leaving the Academy as much as physically possible from now on."

Stein thought that hearing it would be the worst, the final stamp of certainty on what he *knew* would result from the Kishin's release. It is not. Spirit's cheerful "Understood, sir!" hurts far worse than anything Lord Death has said thus far. Stein has never felt so out-of-sync with - with Spirit since he returned to Death City as he does now, with the weapon flying high on delight and himself folding under the weight of too much loss, current and impending blending together until he can't tell what he has already lost and what is yet to be taken.

"One other change." Lord Death continues. "I think we should have another Death Scythe stationed here to help fortify the DWMA's defenses. Marie, I'm assigning that duty to you. I'd like you to be Stein's new partner."

Well. It's better than Azusa. Marie is easy to be around. It will be easier to hide things from her too; she's significantly less perceptive than the crossbow.

Marie doesn't seem particularly thrilled with this assignment, however. "Why me? Oh no," she sobs, and for the first time Stein considers that his weapon partners may be somewhat more alike than he has ever considered before. "Please, you can't be serious, I've completely lost the motivation to work. I even chose to be in charge of Oceania because I knew it would be *peaceful* and *easy*." She wilts forward like a thirsty flower, folding over until she is even shorter than she already seems in the surrounding crowd. "If I'm always busy here at the Academy, it'll take me even longer to find a husband."

Stein reaches out, rests his right hand on her shoulder. The contact is warm and solid and entirely lacks the reassurance that touching Spirit gives him. "It's okay. I have a feeling your obsessive tendencies will come in handy."

"Don't say that," she moans without lifting her head. Her voice is comforting, in a distant way, familiar if not what Stein's head is screaming for. He moves his hand anyway, just so he won't have the temptation to lean on her for support.

Azusa is talking again, which means he can safely tune her out. The sound fades away into a low hum as the static in his ears roars louder for the moment. Stein stares off into the distance, fights off the urge to look at Spirit, resists the desire to crumple to the floor or cover his ears with his hands or twist the screw until his thoughts go quiet. He can't let them know how badly he is doing or they'll never let him leave.

He follows Marie when she goes, doesn't hesitate even when Lord Death calls Spirit to stay behind. Spirit isn't his weapon anymore, after all. He hasn't really been, not since they were kids, no matter how much Stein has let himself believe otherwise recently. It will be better if they leave things as they are, before Spirit sees Stein slide into Madness he can't be saved from.

"So." Marie offers as they head down the corridors of the Academy. She starts to turn left, corrects to follow Stein's right. "How - how have you been?"

"I'm fine, Marie." He fishes for a topic, something to let her talk about while he focuses on walking. "How was Oceania?"

"It was great," she sighs, and then she's off, her voice spilling out to almost-drown out the dark noise of Stein's head. It helps a little, demands some of his attention and makes him feel almost normal for a moment. Anyone seeing into his head would see the difference, the roiling thoughts and the constant dread and the repressed physical hurt, but from the outside he probably looks as normal as he ever has. Marie is good for that. She has always been good at helping him create a facade.

They end up at the side of the basketball court, where Stein can lean against the support of a bench and take the pressure off his back. The sunshine is warm and unfamiliar against his face, heating the dark fabric of his shirt until all his skin feels like its temperature has increased a few degrees. The heat saps some of the cramp from his sore muscles, lowers the ache to an almost pleasant dulled throb rather than a sharp pain, and Marie's voice is soft and soothing and Stein feels like he might be able to sleep like this, if it weren't for the constant threat of his subconscious mind's fears.

He feels Spirit coming before the weapon is within earshot, senses him standing at the entrance to the park for long seconds before he actually covers the distance. Marie is talking but Stein has lost the thread of conversation as all his awareness reaches out for Spirit.

Stein doesn't turn, waits until Spirit is next to him before he reacts, looking up the long line of buttons along that green shirt, the jacket slung in an imitation of casual over one shoulder. Stein wonders idly what Lord Death had to say.

"Huh?" hStein offers by way of a greeting, and "Hey," Spirit responds. His voice is strained, not quite as even as he is trying for.

Marie misses this subtlety, answers with more actual relaxation in her words than Spirit managed. "Oh, I didn't see you there, Spirit."

Spirit ignores the other weapon, leaning down low so his shoulder very nearly brushes Stein's hand. Stein doesn't jerk back and doesn't reach out, primarily due to the fact that he wants very much to do both and can't decide which desire is dominant. "What are they doing here?" Spirit asks, eyeing the students on the basketball court. "Didn't we tell them to stay at home so they can heal?"

"I'm always amazed by how carefree kids can be," Stein doesn't really answer. His own past is rising fast from lost memory, the ease of existence before he bothered to learn morality, the straightforward satisfaction of breaking bone or his own skin tearing. It seems very simple in retrospect. He's not sure that caring turned out to be worth the complexity.

Spirit glances sideways at Stein. Stein doesn't meet his eyes. He doesn't want Spirit to see what's in them.

The weapon straightens up and Stein tries and almost succeeds not regretting the loss of proximity. "I wouldn't call it carefree. They just had the biggest battle of their lives. They've trying to regain some *normalcy* in their own way."

"I'm not so sure about that," Stein answers, just for the sake of disagreeing. "This doesn't seem much more normal than that fight underground. It's still two sides fighting for different goals."

"Jeez Stein," Spirit scoffs as he turns away. "A simple game like basketball and you still can't quite get it, can you?" The insult is clear, stretched tight over some swirl of emotions that Stein can't quite pick free into clarity.

The basketball game has ended. Maka makes her way over to Spirit, her discomfort so evident that even Stein can see it clear on her face. Spirit turns, startled, and with his attention occupied Stein can look at him, twisting on the bench to watch him while he talks to Maka.

"Oh, hey. What's going on Maka?"

"Um, y'see...papa." Maka sounds like she is being held at knifepoint, the words dragging out of her as her blush rises to match the tension in her words. The color makes her look more like Spirit than she ever has before, a smaller not-quite mirror image of him. Stein smiles before he can stop himself, but neither of them are watching him so it doesn't matter. "Do...do you wanna hang out? Like, Saturday?"

Spirit freezes. Stein watches his shoulders, confirms that he has entirely forgotten to breathe, and then Spirit's grip on his coat gives way. The fabric hits the ground, puddles behind him, and then he rocks back, tipping his face up to the sky like it has some sort of guidance for him.

"I...I thought Maka was looking for normalcy!" It's not directed at anything in particular, just a wail of confusion to the sky. Stein is grinning, can't stop himself. At least Spirit hasn't changed.

"Papa?"

Spirit turns away, stumbles towards the wall, and folds over to vomit up everything in his stomach. His hair falls over his face; Stein's fingers twitch against the back of the bench with remembered past duties. He closes them into a fist to hide the tell.

Marie pushes to her feet, moves to help Spirit, but Maka is closer and faster. She steps forward to rub her hand across Spirit's back, and Stein is reminded of how easily physical contact comes to everyone else. It's like the ethics he spent years drilling into his head until they were *almost* as natural as instinct, this careful ease of touching that he can *almost* perfectly fake.

"What's wrong, papa? Are you okay?" The concern in Maka's voice is genuine. For all that she declares she hates Spirit, there's real affection there too.

Spirit coughs, turns his head to look up at her. "Sorry." He sounds *awful*, voice scratched against a throat raw with the burn of stomach acid. "It's just that I'm so happy!"

"Hang on. I'll get some medicine for you!" Maka is gone before Spirit can respond, "No, it's really - I'm okay!"

He shouldn't be this attractive, Stein reflects. His hair is a tangled mess and he just finished puking over something entirely ridiculous and even his shirt is rumpled now, coming loose from his slacks and wrinkled all along his sleeves, and Stein wants nothing as much as he wants to touch Spirit right now.

He doesn't. "Happy puking," he says instead. "I guess that's one more thing I don't understand." He pulls his eyes away, looks up into the glare of the sky until it swallows his vision in white.


	23. Normalcy

Spirit thinks that nothing can bring him down off his high of relief. He was fully prepared to be sent away in disgrace, exiled from the only place he wants to be, and the news that Lord Death is allowing him to remain is such an enormous surprise that it is absolutely impossible to pay attention to any of the rest of the conversation. Working with Lord Death rather than with Stein isn't ideal, but he wasn't expecting anything like even what he got, and he'll be in the *city* where Maka is and where Stein is and that's *perfect,* that's such good news that even when Lord Death asks him to stay behind there isn't as much as a flicker of worry. He waits while the rest of the Death Weapons and Stein file out of the Death Room, too pleased to be impatient, too relieved to be stressed about the possibilities.

Finally it is just him and his official meister. "What is it, sir?"

"Actually, I need to talk to you about Stein." And just like that, the relief is gone. Panic floods through Spirit's veins, though he's not sure what he's so afraid of; Lord Death has already chastised him for abandoning his post during the Kishin fight, is there more to come?

And then the second half comes, and Spirit realizes that he has *known* what Lord Death was going to say all along. "I'm pretty sure he's realized it himself, but his old madness is beginning to take hold of him again."

Stein *does* realize. Spirit could feel it in the withdrawal at the end of their fight against Medusa, the self-awareness of his own Madness bleaching Stein's words into triviality. They haven't spoken since the fight, not really, just inconsequential small talk, and Spirit has trained himself to be very good at turning away from unpleasant truths and has gone the last weeks without thinking of that half-seen hallucination except in the worst of his nightmares. He has been worrying about being sent away, worried about losing Maka and Stein and his position all at once, and entirely ignored the fact that he is likely to lose Stein regardless of whether he goes or stays.

The whiplash of the realization, the epiphany that he has *known* this and *deliberately* been avoiding facing the truth, cuts into his voice, and when he speaks the words are harsh with anger that is mostly self-directed. "So you put him with *Marie*?"

*Why not *me*?* is what he wants to say and doesn't voice. **I* was there for him when we were kids, *I* was the one who taught him to control his madness, *I* was -*

*You were the one who left him.*

It's perfectly reasonable, patently true, and it feels like a physical blow.

"I think she's the best partner for him right now. Her soul wavelength should have a positive effect on the madness inside him." Lord Death sounds calm, oblivious to the roil of emotions under Spirit's skin. "So, Spirit. You're Stein's former partner," and the past-tense clarification has never hurt as much as it does right now. "Can I ask you to keep an eye on his situation for me as well?"

Spirit wants to protest. He wants to be petty and vindictive and sulk, refuse to have anything to do with Stein, but he is a grown man, as Stein keeps telling him, and if Stein *needs* him, if there is anything he can do to help, he will do it. They have always worked better that way.

"Yes."

Lord Death is silent, like he's waiting for more clarification, but Spirit can't bring words to his throat without his tone giving him away. He stays where he is, head tipped down so his hair half-obscures his face, and waits until Lord Death finally says, "Okay then! I'll see you later, Spirit!"

Spirit turns away, walks out of the room without really seeing his surroundings. His mind is replaying Stein's Soul Force when they were children, the absolute devastation in the meister's green eyes as Spirit pulled him in close to hiss cruelty into his face. The bloody moisture percolating from Stein's own thoughts to drip across his skin after killing Medusa. The silence of the last few weeks, the casual conversation in the hallway before coming to this meeting. The screw through Stein's head, the effect it has on his thoughts, how calm he is in Spirit's head now. The cold burn of jealousy at the anniversary party, seeing Medusa so close to the meister. The trickle of jealousy *now*, at a different weapon being assigned in Spirit's place.

*He's changed,* Spirit's head offers. It is perfectly reasonable. It should be level, a calm declaration of facts, but there is almost a whimper to the words even in Spirit's head, like he wants to contradict his own conclusions. *He obviously doesn't feel the way he did. That's good. It's good for him. It was *unhealthy,* don't you remember? You still have the scars, nothing about *that* is normal or sane or productive.*

The Academy hallway is empty, classes still on hiatus while the teachers recover from their injuries. That's a small relief. Spirit scuffs his shoes against the floor, appreciating the slow scrape of sound as it echoes off the corridors.

*But *I've* changed too.* Plaintive, pleading for some leniency. *I *want* to come back. We were great partners, we fought Medusa; he would have *died* without me, if he had been using a lesser weapon.*

*You think you're the only Death Weapon here? Marie has always been stronger than you, Azusa is more accurate, Justin more talented. Stein's good enough to wield *anyone*. You were just available at the time. And you're the one who followed Medusa. He never *asked* you to do that.*

*He said he *needed* me.*

Spirit plays the words back in his head in Stein's voice, warm and soft and loaded with meaning, but even as he tries to pin the connotations down the underlying resonance fades from his memory, the words fall flat and straightforward.

*He needed a *weapon.* You're not the only option anymore.*

Spirit stops walking. There's a bench against the wall; it's better than the floor, at least, and he can't keep walking while he tries to sort this out. He drops onto it, leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees and cover his face with his hands. He is breathing harder than he thought he was, panic and doubt crushing into him. He deliberately slows his inhales, steadies his breath until his throat opens up from the threat of tears a little. His skin is flushed hot; taking off his jacket helps a little, and there's no one here to see anyway. In the shadows, breathing carefully, it is easier to calm down, to even out his thoughts and strip away a little of the panic.

*Okay. Be reasonable. He *did* want you when you were young. There's no question of that.* Spirit wishes the thought was more comforting, didn't make him feel panicky at the thought of missed opportunities. *He's changed since then, leveled off. He doesn't want to tear you apart anymore. That's *good.** He is tracing the scars under his shirt again, running his fingers along the clean straight lines that pattern his stomach and chest. He stops himself, then changes his mind and continues. It's soothing, a little.

*Obviously something happened. He learned to deal with things, or maybe the screw does that somehow; either way, he's better now. And just because he's changed doesn't mean he *doesn't* want you. He probably knows how you feel -* The flush of embarrassment rushes hot over Spirit's skin. He shuts his eyes, laughs at himself, tries to move past the thought so it will evaporate faster. *But he might not. Maybe.*

"Okay," Spirit says aloud, then laughs because he's talking to himself now, that's not a good sign at all. "Okay."

He stands up, turns to go, doubles back for his jacket. Adrenaline is making him panicky, pushing anxious laughter up his throat, but that's okay, he can deal with that. Right now he has to find Stein, fast, before he slides back into self-doubt and loses his resolve.

He thinks to head for the laboratory; it seems likely that Stein will be there, given the early summer sunshine and the meister's habitual distaste for such. But the sound of Maka's voice, shrill with frustration, pulls Spirit's eyes towards the basketball court as he goes past the city park and there Stein is, sitting on the park bench with Marie next to him as if watching Academy students play basketball is an entirely ordinary occupation for him.

Spirit is frozen for a moment, adrenaline and surprise locking him in place. Marie smiles, stretches, and Spirit picks up what she is saying without trying. "Okay. I don't have a boyfriend right now anyway, I guess I might as well do some work. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Everything's happened so quickly, I'll need to stay at your place until I can find an apartment in town."

Spirit steps forward towards the pair of them as Stein answers. "That's fine, but don't blame me if you wind up dismembered."

Spirit's brain stutters to a halt. All his own confessions fly out of his head and the excess of nervous sweat across his skin chills to ice with the possibilities of this conversation. Then Marie answers, and her voice is teasing, soft and amused. "I have *complete* faith in you."

Oh. *Oh.* Spirit could kick himself. Of *course.* He had forgotten all about Marie, her interest in Stein when they were kids. She must have become his partner right after that, must have been there when Stein decided to put that screw through his head, must have been there as he gained control over his own Madness.

Lord Death's words come back - "her soul wavelength should be a positive effect" - and possibility clicks into certainty with all the force of evidence. The explanation is too easy, embarrassingly clear. *Marie* taught Stein the calm he has now. It is *Marie's* wavelength that smoothed away the Madness that Spirit remembers, Marie's influence that has given him the ability to fake normalcy when he needs to. Shame overtakes jealousy, bitter against Spirit's tongue. That he thought...he can't even put words to it now, not when the counter-evidence is sitting directly in front of him. He is painfully relieved that he found Stein and Marie together, that his confession was aborted before he could make a bigger fool of himself than he already has. Stein's distance makes sense too, the avoidance of the last few weeks; he *must* have caught the edge of Spirit's feelings during their fight. He's been trying to make himself clear without the awkwardness of a confrontation.

*It would have been easier if he had just *told* me,* Spirit thinks bitterly. *Sheesh. Is he always going to be this much of a headache?* He tries to force the words into lightness in his head. He almost succeeds.

Stein reacts like Spirit has spoken, turns to face him. "Huh?" The sun catches his glasses, turns his hair from grey to silver.

"Hey." Spirit is proud with how level his voice is, how calm and ordinary he sounds.

"Oh, I didn't see you there, Spirit," Marie says, and Spirit has to consciously bite back the unreasonable frustration that pours up his throat. It's hardly Marie's fault; of the three of them she is the least to blame. But his mouth is full of venom and he has to snap at *something.*

The motion of the basketball game draws his eyes, and Black*Star's taped nose and Maka's bandaged cheek offer a perfect outlet. He leans down towards Stein, towards the sunlight on his hair and the green of his eyes, and when he speaks he is close enough to touch the meister if he wanted. "What are they doing here? Didn't we tell them to stay at home so they can heal?"

"I'm always amazed at how carefree kids can be," Stein offers. He is watching the students; when Spirit chances a glance sideways his eyes are fixed forward, like he's barely aware of Spirit at all. Well. He shouldn't have really expected anything else. Spirit straightens. "I wouldn't call it carefree," he says, just for the sake of disagreeing. "They just had the biggest battle of their lives. They're trying to regain some *normalcy* in their own way."

"I'm not so sure about that. This doesn't seem much more normal than that fight underground. It's still two sides fighting for different goals." Stein sounds calm, composed, in spite of his responsiveness to Spirit's needling. It gives Spirit an opening though, a ground for the electricity of his aimless frustration.  
"Jeez Stein," he snaps. "A simple game like basketball and you still can't quite get it, can you?" It's more vicious than he intended, more of an insult than he wanted, but it helps bleed off the anger. Spirit turns away so Stein and Marie won't see his face, but his eyes stay stuck on the back of the meister's head. He tells himself it's not to watch the golden light slip warm against Stein's hair. He almost believes himself.


	24. Worse

The light hurts his head. Sunlight is the worst, but even the dim flicker of the lab's fluorescent lights are bringing on the pain today, and it is easier to shut the door to his study and turn them off entirely and let the green glow of the computer screen light his face.

Stein is exhausted. He can't sleep; at least, he thinks he can't. It's hard to be sure, now, when he's asleep and when he's awake - usually waking is better, an easier place to live in, even though his head sometimes fills with so much pain it cramps his hands until he can't turn his screw, even though his vision sometimes washes red and recently he hasn't been sure if people in the room are actually there. Medusa, in particular - she is dead, he is almost certain almost all of the time that she is dead, that he and Spirit killed her. The remembered warmth of her blood on his face and the weight of Spirit is his hands is too clear for that to be all untrue.

Spirit too. Those *are* dreams, so far, and Stein wants very, very badly to keep them that way. The best are the nightmares about Spirit leaving, turning his back and walking away from the meister that is too much trouble and too much danger and too much *everything* for even the long-suffering weapon to tolerate. It's harder to reassure himself when Spirit's blood sloughs off his hands as he comes back to consciousness, harder to convince himself that it wasn't Spirit's dying breath that pulled him back to sanity after finally destroying the last good thing he had. And the worst are the *good* dreams, the ones where Spirit smiles and reaches out for him and whispers that he cares, that he wants Stein, that he will stay and help and be there, because sometimes Stein doesn't have the strength to remember why that can't be, why he can't let Spirit that close, and when he wakes up from those it always takes bleary hours before he can trust himself to leave the room.

It's not all bad. Medusa isn't always over his shoulder. The static *is* always there, fighting with voices of reality and of his own internal Madness, but it is easier to deal with that than with the hallucinations. Stein has years of practice at shoving away sounds inside his own head. And the screw helps. When he can remember to turn it, it pushes back the sound a little, lets him catch a breath, and when he needs it he can keep himself present enough to teach. For now.

The thought of the screw brings his hand to it, and grinding it past a turn clears his thoughts enough to grant them a new topic. The new teaching rotation with Marie gives him today off, gives him time to face his demons or run from them. The latter is more tempting. He can't gain anything from confronting them right now, not when the cause is outside the bounds of his own head.

The computer offers up his old file, the one he used when he developed the screw in the first place. It's odd to look at a design that has his style all over it, that now runs straight through his head, and have no memory of creating it at all. He can see how it works with the details in front of him - the logic is sound, the effects undeniable - but he can't recall how the idea came to him in the first place.

*It's probably for the best.* That's Spirit, in his head and not his house, gentle as that voice has been since the Kishin's revival. *Those are *not* memories you want to revisit.*

"Lost memories too?"

He goes still. The words lack the echoey resonance of his head, the comfort of familiar voices that he has heard over years of isolation. But he knows it anyway; it's a recent addition but an active one.

There is no point in turning. He tried to hit her, the first time, but his hand slipped past Medusa's form like she wasn't there at all. That brings up an involuntary laugh that probably sounds somewhat less than stable. After all, she *wasn't* there. Dead witches generally do not appear in the Academy infirmary, as far as he knows.

The voice goes on. He stays where he is, watching the slow spin of the screw design in the computer monitor.

"That's *really* bad, Stein. Remembering things that didn't happen...forgetting things that did...how can you know that *anything* is real?" The tone is saccharine with assumed sweetness. He doesn't move, doesn't answer. It's not like he hasn't asked himself this before.

*Some things are real.* Spirit again, rising in strength from concern into anger. *Some things are.*

Medusa reaches around him to press her fingers against the keyboard. The screw disappears from sight, replaced with text as her fingers move across the keys.

"It's only going to get worse from here, Stein. You know that. What's the point in fighting a losing battle?" He can *feel* her breath against his ear. If he moved his arms at all they would brush hers, on either side of him like a cage. "You've been fighting this too long. How do you know that resistance was ever even the right choice? It never got you anything in the end."

Stein's gaze slips off the screen; he can't quite hold his head up, and he's not reading the lettering across the black background anyway. The keys are moving - when he looks at them he can see them depress, rise as weight comes off, but there's nothing atop them at all. His own hands are under the desk, limp in his lap; when he tries to raise them they feel like they've gained weight in accordance with his head, dragged down by their own density into a permanent fixture across his thighs.

A hand seizes the back of his head, closes against his hair and his scalp. He can feel the fingernails tear into his skin, the sudden rush of blood to the surface of his skin like it's trying to break free, bleeding fast and rushed like scalp wounds always do. The grip shoves his too-heavy head forward until his forehead slams against the screen of his monitor; he thinks for a moment it will break through but can't do anything to stop the momentum, and then he hits and it hurts but the glass doesn't break. This close the letters on the screen are pixelated, impossible to read, but there's a voice in his head made of static and screams and laughter chanting "Dismember dismember," over and over and over again, and it's rising in volume and pitch and Spirit is yelling something but it's getting drowned out, everything is falling away, if he could lift his hand to the side of his head he could do *something* but he can't remember *what* and he can't lift his hand anyway so it doesn't matter, this is *easier*, easier to just give in, and the chanting drops away. The screaming undertones turn into purrs, like a massive mechanical process is whirring in his head, and it makes his teeth hurt but he's laughing too, sound coming up his throat with no cause and no reason but there's no reason *not* to laugh either, why shouldn't he -

A hand lands on his shoulder and the sound in his head goes quiet. It is only for a moment, flickering into silence for a breath and then back, as loud and angry as it ever was, but Spirit is back too, screaming at him with the shrill edge of true panic under his voice. *STEIN Stein you have to *stay with me* you have to *listen* to me you'll be *lost* otherwise-*

The words aren't important, only that the voice is back. Stein takes a breath, checks his face to even out any last residues of panic or amusement, turns toward the touch. For a horrible moment he thinks it is Medusa. The sight of Marie's face, her golden-brown eye, her black eyepatch, the fall of her golden hair, has never been quite as much of a relief as it is right now.

"Marie."

Her uncovered eye is worried, forehead creased in concern, but she moves her hand away. Whatever she sees in his face is enough to calm the worst of her fears, although when she tries to laugh it chokes and catches in her throat. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Stein is proud of how he sounds. He's *never* delivered any sentence with such perfectly modulated tone before. He sounds entirely, perfectly, falsely sane. "What d'you need?"

"I have a message from Lord Death. Apparently the oldest golem in Loew village has gone *crazy.*"

The sentence makes so little sense that for a moment Stein is worried he hasn't heard her clearly. Marie hasn't been part of his hallucinations yet - it actually makes her an excellent choice for a partner under the circumstances - but they could start at any point. And really he doesn't have any way to *confirm* that Marie is even back in Death City, that he's here at all, that his surroundings…

He cuts off that line of thought. It all *could* be a massive hallucination but there's no way to tell and no point in worrying about it now.

Marie holds up a package of coffee. "Do you have any cups? I'll make us some tea."

*Not* a hallucination. He always forgets her odd insistence on referring to coffee as tea. His own head would never be able to recall that detail on its own. The confirmation should be a relief but it just makes him feel tired. He turns away, leans his weight on the edge of the computer desk. There's no evidence, now, of those frantically typing hands, just the slow-spinning blue outline of the screw.

"Use those over there," he offers without gesturing.

"You put tea in a beaker?" Marie asks. Stein almost answers before he realizes the question is rhetorical. His attention to the details of conversation is slipping; it would be easier to keep alert if he could *sleep* or *rest* or let his guard down for a minute, even just a second, but if his dreams are as bad as they have become, he doesn't want to find out what slipping into relaxation while awake would be like.

He reaches up to adjust his glasses and has to run his fingers along the lines of his bone structure for several seconds before he realizes they are gone. They are set on the desk next to him, which argues to him being the one who took them off even though he doesn't recall doing so.

Marie is shifting glassware and fiddling with one of the burners, but she has gone quiet so Stein doesn't have to focus on the meaning behind her words. He shuts his aching eyes, lets the dim blue light from the screen play against his eyelids while the sound of Marie's movements blends with the murmuring voices in his head.

Stein can hear the hiss of warming water before Marie speaks again. "Anyway, Lord Death wants to hear your opinion on the subject. Is this incident going to be a problem for us?"

He opens his eyes to watch the spin of the design as he answers. "Golems are usually created to protect against evil. It isn't in their programming to become destructive like this." Of course, programming is just that. It can be changed. Compared to his own self-experimentation it would relatively easy. "I suppose modern technology could be used to create golems with different programming. But then again you said this happened to the oldest golem they have in the village."

"You think the Madness wavelengths have something to do with it?"

Stein shuts his eyes. It's a little easier to think in the dark. Something about this isn't quite right but it's hard to focus on the problem. "Even if they do the order of events seems strange."

"How do you mean?"

"Thankfully, as far as we know, there still haven't been any incidents related to the Kishin's revival and Madness."

*You would be the first to know,* Spirit offers.

"It's hard to believe that the first such incident involved a soulless creature like the golem going crazy." Especially when I'm still relatively coherent, he thinks but doesn't say.

"I agree. If anything, it seems like people should be the first to be affected by it. So the first event we hear about shouldn't involve an object like the golem."

*You'll probably be the first person to hear about it.* Stein wants to laugh. Doesn't. He's not sure how it will come out. *Seeing as I won't be in a position to *catalogue* the results correctly.*

*She might not be either. Depending on how it takes you.* Spirit. Again.

"That's right," he says aloud. His voice sounds calm. "The golem shouldn't go berserk until the world is fully enveloped in the madness of the Kishin." He pushes the future out of his head, picks up his glasses and settles them back against the bridge of his nose. His thoughts fall into the grooves of habit with the glass in front of his eyes to guide them, ruts are too deep to have entirely disappeared just yet.

Stein pushes himself to his feet. "Of course, we still shouldn't take the situation too lightly." There are always possible explanations he hasn't yet considered. They need another perspective, more information on the potential accuracy of this statement. He turns towards the door.

As he pushes the door open, Marie calls "Hold on a sec!" He pauses in the doorway, speaks without turning.

"I'm going to the library. Please ask Lord Death to give me some time to consider what's happened." He needs to take advantage of this brief period of rationality to assist however he can. Soon the Academy won't have access to him anymore, but for now they do, and that's what's important right now.


	25. Waver

Lord Death is talking when the call comes in. "I don't expect we'll see any major effects of the Madness Wavelength for a few weeks at the earliest, and probably not for another month or so. The Kishin's Madness shouldn't be underestimated, but it won't kick in all at once or we'd have been in big trouble way before now."

"Mmm." Spirit has enough experience with this to know that the right thing to do is nod and agree and let the words wash over him. He *is* trying to pay attention, but he's not been sleeping well, jerking awake from nightmares he can only half-remember, and the Death Room is warm and the teacup in his hands is sending a drift of soft steam into his face that is entirely counteracting the enlivening effects of the liquid itself.

The mirror hisses with static, beeps in warning, and then Stein's voice cuts into the room and Spirit's exhaustion evaporates like it was never there in the first place. "Lord Death, it's Stein. We need to talk."

Spirit skitters sideways without thinking, edging out of view of the mirror where Stein's face is now visible. He hasn't seen the meister in person since that conversation on the basketball court a week ago and he'd like to maintain his careful avoidance as long as he reasonably can. It's selfish, he knows - he should be *happy* that Stein has found someone, that Marie has someone to dote on - but he can't *force* himself into joy on their behalf past the bite of jealousy, and it seems a better option to stay away so he doesn't pick a fight or sabotage any of the relationships involved in a moment of reckless frustration.

Lord Death doesn't turn, just glides over to the mirror to answer. "Hey there! Hiya! How ya doing? Thanks for coming, good ta see ya!" Spirit has tried to explain greetings before - namely, that one is sufficient to start a conversation - but the details never quite stick, and at this point he has a suspicion that Lord Death is doing it just to tease him, so he rolls his eyes but stays quiet. "Well? What's up? Have you got something figured out?"

"Yes. I believe the Heretic Witch Arachne scattered her body and left her soul inside the golem that's gone crazy in Loew Village."

Stein sounds calm, reciting back information rapid-fire like he's reading off a page, but he looks exhausted. He *always* looks tired, of course; Spirit's never know him to lack the shading of insomnia underneath the edge of his glasses. But now his shoulders are tipped forward, his glasses catching the light in that way they do when he's trying to hide his expression, and there's tension along the edge of his jawline.

It's at this point that Spirit realizes he's cataloguing Stein's face, drinking in the details from his unseen angle as if he can make up for the mutual silence between them with one-sided observation. He glances to Lord Death, terrified that he's been caught, but the shinigami is fixed on Stein and appears entirely oblivious to the weapon's focus.

"Arachne?"

"That's right. It makes sense for her to be the first one we've seen to be dramatically affected by the Madness Wavelengths."

Spirit's not sure what it is that tips him off. It might be a shake in Stein's voice, a motion half-seen out of the corner of his eye, something sensed rather than seen, but he is turning towards the mirror, stepping forward in a panic before he sees the meister move.

Not that there is anything he can do. All he manages is to be just over Lord Death's shoulder, just out of range of the mirror itself, when Stein clutches at the front of his coat and crumples forward. The meister manages to stay on his feet, although from the tension in his arm he's bracing himself heavily on the edge of the mirror on his end, and when he speaks his voice is strained tight over hysteria. "Even here I can feel it. The Madness inside me...her madness is clawing its way inside my body." His chin is tipped down, taking the glare off his lenses to show the tremble as his eyes try to focus on nothing in particular. They are wide and staring and Spirit has seen him like this before but it is *worse* now, worse to see it and have no support to offer. Stein bites down on his lower lip, hard enough that Spirit half-expects to see blood.

"I know it's hard but try to endure it," Lord Death is saying, and Spirit could hit him for sounding so calm when Stein looks to be on the verge of collapse on the other end.

Stein folds over further, almost out of range of the mirror entirely, and visibly sways on his feet. Even so, when he speaks his voice is more steady, even if the effort to make it so is audible in the words. "This is too much for Maka and the others to handle alone. I'll head there now to help them."

"*What*-" Spirit starts, but Lord Death talks over him, drowning out his protest and his voice both.

"Now now, Stein, don't be hasty. I had a bad feeling about this situation too, you see. Necessary measures have already been taken."

"Oh?" Stein steadies, pushes himself upright on whatever is in front of him. His eyes clear, focus on the glass. The shadows under them are only as bad as they usually are, which is something of a relief, but the green in his eyes is dark, heavy with fear or dread or resignation or something of all three. Spirit wonders if Stein knows he's broadcasting his emotions so strongly. Maybe he can't help it just at the moment.

"Yep. I asked Justin to go out to the village as well. Between his abilities and the Demon Swordsman, the students should be able to safely retreat back to the Academy, even if they end up running into Arachne herself."

The idea of Maka facing down the Heretic Witch makes Spirit cringe, whimper like he's been hit. There is a prickle along his spine, the desire to transform and go out to offer support physical sensation as his body considers the possibility...but without a meister he's less effective than the students are themselves, and he has been *ordered* to stay with Lord Death, and...he doesn't transform. Maka will be fine. He's still glad neither of the other two are watching him, because he's pretty sure his expression isn't that of a "grown man," as Stein would put it.

"Arachne. The mother of magic weapons. This must have happened because of the Madness Wavelengths. They've stirred her at last from her slumber." Stein has regained control of his voice if not his face; he sounds as steady and almost bored as usual.  
"Who knew she was still alive after all this time?" Lord Death responds. He begins to ramble, telling Stein about the history of magic weapons as if the meister doesn't know the background as well or better than either Spirit or Lord Death himself. Spirit ignores it, more concerned about the lines across Stein's face and the fact that Stein lets Lord Death continue rather than cutting him off. Spirit's not sure Stein is hearing the shinigami at all, from the way his eyes keep sliding out of focus like he's looking at something far in the back of the Death Room.

"Call me if you need me for anything else." Stein's voice brings Spirit's attention back to the mirror. The meister is upright now, the glare is back over his eyes, his voice is steady. If it weren't for the recent past Spirit wouldn't know to look to his wrists, to see the shift of the fabric that says that the meister's best efforts can't quite control all of his trembling.

"Will do! See ya Stein!" Lord Death chirps, and then the mirror goes flat and ordinarily reflective once again.

Lord Death doesn't turn to Spirit right away; he gazes into the almost-perfect reflection of himself, and when he speaks Spirit isn't sure it's directed at him at all. "Hmm. He's not doing as well as I'd hoped he would be."

"What?" Spirit's voice comes out flat rather than startled, and that is when Lord Death twists to face him.

"Have you been able to keep an eye on him as well? How has he been doing?"

Spirit opens his mouth, shuts it. He can't decide whether he wants to lie and say he has been or tell the truth and explain his reasoning. He opts for something in the middle.

"The Madness Wavelength is really hard on him but he's fighting it." He can't tell Lord Death that he's horrified, that he didn't expect to see Stein so tired and so fragile this soon, that he thought Marie would be more help and that the Madness would progress more slowly and that Stein would hold out...longer? Any resistance is only temporary. Spirit hasn't let himself calculate how long Stein has before the Madness takes over him entirely. His head charts the progress, the descent over the last week, and nausea hits him as strongly as it ever has after a fight.

"Uh. I think Marie is the best choice." He's not even sure what he's saying, rambling through words and half-formed ideas. "I mean. She was there before, right? She's been great for him in the past. And she's there all the time and can be there to help whenever he needs her, she doesn't have any other responsibilities, and besides he -"

He stops. He can't quite manage to put words to what he saw between Marie and Stein in the park, can't face that on top of Stein's impending Madness, not when he's still reeling from the first realization.

"Spirit?" He can't look at Lord Death. There won't be anything to see but the mask, but he feels irrationally like he can hide something if he keeps his face down. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." The words sound flat, dead, drained of emotion. "Is there anything else you needed me for today?"

There is a pause just slightly too long for perfect normalcy. "Nope! That's everything! You're free to go."

"Thank you."

It's startling to realize it's still daylight outside. The sun is still laughing down over the city and golden light is pouring into the dark corners of the alleys. It's entirely unsuited to Spirit's mood. ChupaCabra's isn't open for hours, and besides he can't drink while Lord Death could need him at any moment, at least not to the level of intoxication that could let him sleep dreamlessly past the current painfully sharp awareness in his head. Instead he goes home, to his empty apartment, and pulls the blinds shut over every window in the house. It's almost dark enough, then, and Spirit turns on the television and stretches out across his couch in his suit and tries to let the influx of meaningless images wipe out the shake of Stein's arm and the awful smile across his face, and tries to stay awake so he doesn't have to dream of Stein screaming for help on the other side of glass that Spirit can't get through no matter how bloody he beats his fists.


	26. Mirror

Stein feels the touch coming before it lands. He is better at contact, now, has learned to not flinch away, learned to smile and hide the flutter of adrenaline every time someone else's warmth bleeds into his skin, but the biggest improvement came from *expecting* it. The moment of anticipation before fingers land on skin or hands close around his gives him time to brace, to prepare for the flood of unfamiliar sensation, and he has gotten very good at reading it before it comes. So when the air behind his head shifts, displaced by the entrance of another presence, he is ready for the contact, turning towards it before it lands.

When there is nothing behind him, it is like missing a step at the top of a staircase, his stomach dropping from lack of resistance when he expected it, and a moment later the ramifications settle in in its place.

"Marie?"

That's desperation. There's no way the weapon would have moved so fast, no reason she would have slipped out of sight in the moment it took him to react, but it would be nice to know that there is *someone* else that he is sensing. The silence in response to his call - to his plea, really - is chilling.

"Shit." He shoves away from the keyboard, leaves whatever he was working on unfinished. He can't focus enough to even recall what was on his mind, tells himself that that's just his panic and not the forerunner of the same thing that is inventing voices and visions and touch in his world.

The lab is dark - he can't remember if he turned the lights on at all, thinks he probably didn't. It's easy to forget, and the darkness has never frightened him before. Now it does, enough that he pauses in the doorway of the bathroom after switching the toggle to let the fluorescent light flicker to full brightness before he goes in. The shadows have started *moving*, pulsing gently when he's not looking and freezing to forced stillness when he does, and he's tried not to watch them and tried not to think about it, but the perfect black of the windowless interior room is like an ocean, and he feels irrationally like it will swallow him up if he steps into it.

The light, when it comes, isn't as bright as it should be, but it turns the black dark grey, at least, and the promise of a reflection that can show him anything over his shoulder is enough to push Stein into the room. The water is running. He doesn't remember turning it on, but there are more and more things he doesn't remember recently and this is a minimal loss. Besides, the sound of the faucet is a near match for the static scratch against his skull; with the water on he can almost imagine that it is the plumbing making that sound, almost shove the awareness out into his surroundings instead of the echoing space of his head. If he were better at self-deception, he could.

He pulls his glasses off, shuts his eyes, leans against the support of the sink. The lack of vision prickles panic against the back of his neck, suspicion of an approaching *something*, but it is easier to focus on the sounds in his head too, tell himself that he knows which is the water and which is the static, convince himself that he can still tell the difference. When he turns the screw, the sound shatters into chaos, his mental images flicker too fast to follow, electricity crackling over a smile, a scream, a touch. He keeps going, shaking and resettling the images over and over until they finally fall into place. The *click* reverberates off his skull and in its wake there is a breath of perfect silence, perfect darkness, perfect peace.

"Everything is fine. I am calm and collected," he says aloud. He looks up into the mirror, into those flat eyes. His face is as it always is, as he has trained it to be - smooth, calm, relaxed on the surface regardless of what is seething underneath. At least his mask holds steady, even if everything else is falling apart faster than he hoped, faster even than he expected. Flat green eyes, even breathing, relaxed mouth - but for the crisscross of scars around his left eye and the screw running through his hair he could be the same teenager he was when he last practiced laying composure over his face. "I think I've experimented with my own body more than enough to know."

The water catches in cupped hands, splashes cold against his skin. He is overheated, didn't realize until the moment the liquid touched his face. The water pulls the warmth away, saps his face of the heat of emotion until he can breathe again. A second handful rinses away the sweat of panic, a third -

The light bulb flickers overhead. Stein goes still. The faucet is still running, the light is still on, but that sense of someone behind him is back, stronger now, like there is someone leaning over to breathe hot against the back of his neck. He can feel the pattern of inhalation, the rhythm of slow exhales too clear to be a hallucination, but it's too close and too specific and he has to look *up*, has to see the reflection of whatever it is because it *has* to be there, it *has* to be real this time.

He forces his head up first, keeping his eyes down until he can see it all at once. Deep breath, then up -

There *is* something there, bandage-wrapped face and glistening teeth and blood-painted eyes over the white of wrappings. Relief, stronger than fright, floods his veins, because at least there was *something*. Then his eyes makes it down, takes in the familiarity of the shoulders, the lab coat, the stitches across the dark shirt, and jerks back as the realization hits.

The mirror glows gold, shining like the sometimes-window it can become, but that awful inversion of himself remains, grinning back at him even though he can *feel* that he's grimacing, is *sure* that he's not smiling, but suddenly he can't be sure of *anything* anymore. The reflection's hand shoots out past its glass boundaries and Stein's not even surprised anymore, he's already working at maximum levels of panic and there's no way to turn them up any farther, even when the fingers close hard against his windpipe and cut off his air. The pain of rising bruises is secondary to the instinctive desire for air, so desperate that it takes Stein a moment to stop struggling directly with the arm and cut to the source.

His fist connects with the mirror, shatters the glass and the reflection both, and the pressure against his throat is gone instantly. The piece of himself he can still see in what remains in the frame is wide-eyed, panting, and as almost-familiar as his reflection ever is, an odd glimpse at what other people see instead of his own mental image of himself.

"No," he hisses, collapsing back against the counter behind him. His legs are shaking with a delayed flood of adrenaline. "It can't be happening yet, I still have things left to *do*, damn it." His throat doesn't hurt when he swallows. He doesn't have to come close to the spiderwebbed glass to tell that the marks of fingerprints aren't there. His left hand is aching dully, striped over with slices from the glass strewn around his feet.

"I can't start losing it," he insists, aloud for the security of his own voice, in desperate defiance of reality. "I can't *afford* to." His hand closes tight, pulling the wounds across his knuckles wide and painful and proof of reality. His own expression half-seen is horrible even around the cracks, terrified and trembling like he hasn't seen on his own face in over a decade, and it is a strange comfort to see humanity laid raw over his features as it hasn't been in so long, to see his thoughts bounced back after escaping from the green in his eyes. It is easier to look at himself in the present, to see the emotions as he is feeling them now, than to think of the future. Better to appreciate his own face while he can still recognize it, before he loses that too.


	27. Advice

When Spirit drags himself into the Death Room, he thinks he is ready for Lord Death's over-exuberant greeting. He has had two cups of coffee and is clinging to a third, and the sheer quantity of caffeine in his veins *ought* to make up for his perpetual lack of decent sleep since the Kishin's revival. When the first person he sees upon rounding the corner is Azusa Yumi, he revises his estimation of required coffee, namely that there isn't enough in the world to prepare him for this conversation.

"Spirit! Good morning, great to see ya, how's it going!"

"Lord Death," he offers in his best Death-Scythe voice. It doesn't help. Azusa peers at him, shoves her glasses up needlessly. They catch the light right into his eyes.

"Death Scythe." Spirit wishes he knew how Azusa manages to turn his official title into an insult and simultaneously load it with skepticism. It would be a useful skill to have. As it is he does not quite manage to repress his cringe.

"Hm." He can't see her eyes behind her glasses but he can *feel* her glaring at him, taking in his lopsided collar, the wrinkles in his shirt, the shadows under his eyes. "Are you sure you're up to this meeting, Death Scythe? You look like you haven't slept in a week."

"I'm fine, Azusa. It's my responsibility to be here." And more time won't help. Sleeping is a chore now, something he has to snatch from reserves of pure exhaustion so he can avoid the dreams that come with unconsciousness. If he waits long enough, sleeps little enough, the sound of his alarm pulls him awake before the nightmares start, and even if he's bleary and all his bones ache when he drags himself out of bed, it's better than waking up crying.

"If you say so," Azusa says in a tone that underlines her own disbelief, but she turns back to Lord Death and frees Spirit from the petrification of her gaze. "How do you plan to structure the retrieval of the Magic Tool BREW, Lord Death?"

"Ah. Yes. As you know, Arachnophobia has been showing significant interest in the Magic Tools scattered across the world," Lord Death offers. Azusa is nodding, sharp and irritated at reviewing familiar details; Spirit tries very hard to look bored rather than intent upon information that might as well be new for all he remembers of their previous conversations on the topic. "The Magic Tool BREW is of particular interest to them, and therefore to us as well. It has the greatest potential of any of the Magic Tools Eibon created; if it were to fall into Arachnophobia's hands, our situation would become quite unpleasant!"

Lord Death is a master of understatement, as always. Spirit has wondered if the shinigami has really processed that his Death Weapons have aged and grown into adults capable of handling unpleasant truths, or if his euphemistic approach is just habit bleeding into consistency from too long modulating his personality for the Academy students.

"Do we know where the Magic Tool is located?" Azusa asks.

"Yep!" Lord Death nods so hard Spirit can see it even with the obscuring effect of the mask and robes. "It was left on Lost Island, just north of Alaska, inside the facility Eibon used while researching Magic Tools. An explosion centuries ago left the island uninhabitable and formed a magnetic storm around the facility itself. The storm is the main difficulty; ordinary humans can only be inside the magnetic field for 20 minutes."

"What happens if they stay inside longer than that?" Spirit asks.

Lord Death shakes his head. "It's not good. Let's just say that our plans need to get everyone in and out of the field in 20 minutes. We shouldn't send any students in at all, if we can help it, but we'll need to have a large force on the Island. Arachnophobia has quite a presence; we'll need to be able to hold them off from the storm while a select team goes inside to retrieve BREW and handle any of Arachne's supporters that go inside as well."

"Is there anyone we can send who would be safe inside the storm for more than the standard amount of time?" Azusa's voice is as flat as it always is, but focused on the problem at hand much of the cutting edge is dulled. She sounds a little like Stein when she is thinking about a problem, although the comparison is always deeply unsettling whenever Spirit thinks of it.

"Unfortunately no. Our focus will have to be speed in this case."

"Do you have any ideas for the team who should go after BREW itself?" Spirit asks. His coffee has cooled to a drinkable temperature, although he can still feel the heat as his mouthful slides down his throat.

"Nope! That's most of what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Death Scythe would be a good option," Azusa puts in, and Spirit is deeply grateful that he *doesn't* have a mouthful of coffee so instead of spitting liquid all over himself he just tries to choke on his tongue. Azusa glances at him in response to the strangled sound he makes and her thin eyebrows raise almost as high as the edge of her bangs.

"Don't look so surprised. You *are* the best weapon at the Academy."

Spirit makes a strange noise between a whine and a query. That...was very nearly a compliment. It might have *been* a compliment from anyone but Azusa.

Lord Death is shaking his head. "Spirit has to stay here. I don't think we'll need to fight off the Kishin, but last time we weren't prepared and that's what put us in this predicament in the first place. What about yourself, Azusa?"

"No." The weapon adjusts her glasses again. "I have specific skills but versatility is not my strong suit. I can be most helpful out in the field; within the electrical field my superior vision will be entirely negated."

"Send Stein." Spirit offers. He isn't really thinking, not properly, but the conclusion is as natural as breathing. "He's the best meister here." He pauses, reviews his next words before he says them. They come out Azusa-level, flat and entirely free of lingering emotion. "He and Marie are a great team, he should be able to wield her and recover BREW faster than anyone else at the Academy."

"And his Soul Force will give him some flexibility with hand-to-hand combat as well," Azusa adds. "I agree. They should compose the point team while I support the rest of the adult meisters out in the field around the target site."

"Sounds good to me!" Lord Death chirps. "I'm going to send out just a handful of the students to support the rest of the team as well; they could use the experience and we need the additional force of extra partners out in the field. Spirit, Maka and Soul are one of the best teams in the Academy; I'll be sending them out as part of this operation too. I'll need you to stay focused on the plan rather than worrying about Maka. Can you do that?"

"Absolutely," Spirit starts to say before Azusa tips her head to watch him. The white-shine of her glasses freezes the too-fast response before he can finish it, and he goes quiet, actually considers the question.

Finally he looks away from Lord Death, down at the clouds scudding across the pale floor of the Room. "I - I think I can."

"Spirit. I need you to be *sure.*"

He swallows, looks back up at the white mask. "I'm sure. Yes. I can."

There is a pause of silence that even Azusa doesn't break. Then Lord Death claps his hands together. "Great! That's everything then!"

*That fast?*

"You two can get back to whatever you were doing before. I'll keep you posted on the details, though. Azusa, can you track down Sid and ask him to come here? I'd like to discuss the details of the ground force with him."

"I'll see that he does."

"Great, I'll see you two later then!"

Spirit turns to follow Azusa out of the Death Room. He's not particularly keen to spend much time with the other Death Weapon, especially not with the weight of exhaustion etched into his bones and thoughts, but there's only one way in and out and he doesn't have much option.

She stays quiet until they exit into the corridor and the branching is in sight, but then the sound of her clearing her throat stiffens Spirit's spine in dreadful anticipation.

"Are you doing well, Death Scythe?"

"I'm *fine*," Spirit snaps back before he really processes the question, the very nearly gentle tone to it, and then his surprise pulls his eyes to her before he can stop himself. "*What*?"

"Like I said, you look tired. You'll need to be at your best if Lord Death needs you; is there something bothering you?"

The question cuts right past the shock of *Azusa* apparently worrying about him, taps into the stress and panic and misery Spirit has been carefully avoiding, and he is suddenly not sure that he's going to be able to keep from crying. He looks away from her face, down into the corridor in front of them, and gulps a too-large mouthful of coffee to stall for time while he tries to sort through his thoughts.

*Everything* is bothering him. The Kishin revived and it is his *fault*, he knows it is deep down in his soul, and that means that *Stein's* imminent collapse is his fault too, that everything the meister is currently going through is a result of his own actions. He misses Stein, he wants his meister back and wants his friend back and wants the possibility of something more that died before he ever got a chance to pursue it. He wants Maka to be safe and he wants the constant threat of the Kishin and Arachnophobia to evaporate, and he wants to be free to go where he wants, to see Stein and protect Maka when he wants instead of constantly awaiting the possibility of a call from Lord Death. And he wants to *sleep*, wants to drop into rest like he used to, before his dreams all turned into nightmares made of madness and loss and guilt, before he woke up more panicked than when he fell asleep.

And if he tries to tell Azusa any of this, he will end up crying on Azusa Yumi's shoulder and nothing will be better and she will *really* hate him then, hate him for being weak.

He swallows back the coffee and the tears together, and when he looks back at her he is smiling bright and false like he used to for interviews.

"I'm fine, Azusa. You worrying about my health? Careful you don't accidentally fall for me!"

Azusa's eyebrows don't entirely unfold from their concerned twist, but she rolls her eyes so hard Spirit can feel it even behind the glare of her glasses. "No worries about that, Death Scythe. You are *not* my type."  
"Good. It's important to maintain a professional relationship." Spirit leads the way down the hallway to keep his face out of Azusa's too-perceptive line of sight. She drops into step behind him, only moving away as they reach the branching corridor.

"Death Scythe."

Spirit stops at the address, although he doesn't turn. "Yep?"

"Get some sleep."

It's not concern in her voice, not affection, but she sounds *human* for the first time Spirit has ever known. He stays still until the sound of her footsteps down the opposing corridor have died away.


	28. Collapse

When Stein's vision flickers into static, he nearly laughs. The reaction is wholly inappropriate, the situation far too serious to merit amusement, but the timing of the collapse he has known is coming could not *possibly* be worse, and the irony has the prickling heat of tears behind it. Laughter would help hold the sobs off, but his throat is spasming without his permission and he can't let any sound out or he'll lose control entirely.

Instead he stops dead. He can't see anything - the world is filmy grey, shifting with motes of color that almost certainly have no bearing on reality. Blinking has no effect on either the color or the visions. There is sound from a distance, a voice he almost recognizes, but it is fading into the rising screech in his head, disappearing into inaudibility as the white noise of his brain scrapes loud against his eardrums. He can feel blood over his hands, dripping hot between his fingers, and that can't possibly be reality but he can't remember *why* and this is a very very bad sign.

The touch against his arm is hot, blistering even through his coat, and with the shock of the contact comes a brief connection to reality again, although his vision doesn't return.

"Stein?" He doesn't recognize the voice. He should, the tones are pulling at his memory like he should have some sort of response, but the images they are keyed to refuse to come up, like the link has been miswritten or broken somewhere along the way, and the haze of almost-emotion he receives instead is unpleasant, stirring up more anxiety about what he *can't* recall than comfort. "Stein, are you okay?"

"Quiet." He doesn't recognize his own voice until he hears it, until he realizes that his vocal chords are trembling under the skin of his throat. He raises a hand to touch his own neck, to feel the vibration when he speaks. "Just be quiet, Marie."

The name rose to his lips without him thinking, and for a moment a face comes with it, his vision snapping back to reality between blinks to give back a blonde woman wearing an eyepatch, staring up at him with concern creasing her forehead and darkening her visible eye.

"What's wrong?" she says, and the fragile connection to reality vanishes, shatters apart like glass under a fist. The skin across Stein's left hand aches as he flexes his fingers. The touch on his arm is *burning*, the blood rising to the heat painful under nerves unused to stimulation, and he wants to flinch away but how does he *flinch*, how does he *move*, how does he *breathe* how does his heart beat does he need to blink? Basic processes slide away, demand active attention like they never have before, and if he would let it *go* he could breathe again, if he let it go but he *can't*, he has to hold on, that is very important even though he can't remember why right now.

His knees twinge with pain, his shoulder grates against something, and he realizes he has dropped to his knees. Reaching out he can press his hands to the ground, can feel like maybe reality isn't entirely lost, although his vision is clearing into a scene that has no gravity and no *floor* and he is going to *fall*, fall *forever*, and his aching hand fists as he tries to hold himself to ground he can't see in a world he is barely part of.

The voice is back, rising in panic, but it is grainy like the sound from an old movie, the words as meaningless as if they were in a foreign language. His right arm shifts up, lifted by an unknown force, but it could be by his own decision, he's not sure he would know the difference. His glasses are impossibly heavy, shoving down against the bridge of his nose; he forgets to breathe for a minute to concentrate on bringing his left hand up and pulling them off, dropping them to the ground. His hand stays against his face, the contact of glove against skin strangely comforting, like he's covering a grievous injury or making a futile attempt to protect himself from an oncoming explosion.

There is liquid on his hands, blood maybe, too thick to be fresh from a living body but maybe congealing, blackened by nature or time he can't tell, but it is trickling between his fingers and coating his face and he can *taste* it on his tongue, thick like syrup and bitter like iron. He tries to spit but there's nothing in his mouth, of course there's not, there never *was* anything there to spit out at all, and his hands are hanging by his sides and *he* is hanging in midair. Where else would he be? Who else would he be? Laughter forces up his throat, and then he's turning his face up to the rain pouring from a blood-red sky, and the rain is grey and tastes like static and is ice-cold against his skin, and when he breathes his lungs fill with liquid and he is drowning, his body choking for oxygen that doesn't exist.

*I'm drowning.* The thought is very clear, bright in his head like it has been placed there by an outside force, and suddenly he's not, his lungs are clear and that heavy liquid is pouring over his head but not down his throat, and there is a presence crouched over him like a spider, enveloping everything that he is and ever has been into itself. Momentary clarity sparks bright as fire in his thoughts and Spirit's face bursts across his memory, red hair and blue eyes and easy smile and there is a pang of loss like a stab wound, slicing through skin and bone and body until it digs into his very soul and breaks through the one thing he has *always* had. His face flushes hot with tears but only one eye lets them free; the other stays steady, gazing out past an ever-increasing waterfall of red. His vision flickers out again, memory surging higher than Madness for a moment to give back Marie, Sid, Azusa, Lord Death, his students, each face crushing into him with the emotional trappings of years of interactions before they flicker out like a candle, leaving him sobbing over something he can't remember, mourning the loss of something he can't be sure he ever had.

Dark blood pours over his responsive eye, mixes thin with salty tears, and then there isn't even the sadness anymore, just the irrevocable knowledge.

*The Madness has me.*

Static soars high, gravity drops away from under him. The impact with the ground jerks him back to reality for a moment, clears his vision into green grass and grey cobblestone under aching palms. There is an arm in front of him, a hand pressed to his chest.

"The Madness…" The sound of his own voice would be startling if he could be startled anymore. His hand lifts when he tries to move it, brushes over his face and finds no trace of the blood he can still taste on his lips. "Why is this happening now?" He sounds like he's been screaming. Maybe he has been.

"It's like there's something eating him from the inside out." Another voice. Almost-familiar, again, triggering memories he knows are gone, but the agony of *knowing* and not *remembering* is dulled to resignation now.

"You have to watch me, Marie." The name comes easily along well-worn grooves of habit, although he has no idea where he originally received this information. "There's no telling what I might do." The hand against his face twitches, reaching for a blade that doesn't exist. This is dangerous, he could *hurt* someone.

More voices, distantly recognized like the first. "Here they are," high but masculine, how does he know that's a boy's voice? "We've been looking all over for you guys. Are you alright?" More familiar, more crucial. The itch against his palm becomes horrifying. He *cannot* hurt that voice, it is *crucial* that he protect it from himself.

"I told you to stay out." As he says the words he remembers, an order to faces blurred out even in his head. "You disobeyed me." Anger surges fast up his throat, aggression seeking any opening at all, and he lets his body go limp, lets the fury pound itself against his skull rather than take over his body because he *can't*, there is a *reason* to hold himself back, he *knows* there is.

Conversation is happening around him, but he can't listen to it. Listening means being in his body and being in his body means danger right now. The static rises again, hissing and popping like sparks, furious with his resistance but he can't give in, this is all *too soon* and he has to *hold on* until it is safe, until he won't hurt anyone but himself. His body is flickering, pieces of it slipping sideways like fingerprints dragged through wet paint, but for all that he feels infinitely heavy, incapable of holding himself up so when one of his points of contact pulls away he drops to the ground, air blowing out of his lungs with the impact he can't manage to avoid. The support comes back a moment later, heaves him up until his weight is half-balanced by shaking legs, and he lets himself be dragged away, helping when he can, but his rate of movement is too slow for him to manage more than one step to every two or three of the other's.

He feels the tingle of electricity, the gust of wind, and then his vision is back, all white snow and the glare of sunlight and a gaggle of students, almost-adults clustered tight and panicked around himself and...Marie, of course it's Marie with him, why was he not sure who she was? They both fold to the ground; Stein's face lands in snow before he can try to save it. The impact is gentle, the particles feather-soft, and he shuts his eyes and relishes the feel of individuality melting to uniform liquid under his skin.

"I need you to watch over the Professor," Marie is saying, and he should stop her. The anger is gone, the Madness lessening for the moment, and all he feels now is very, very tired.

"What are you planning Marie?" he says. As he speaks the details of the mission flicker back to life: a conversation with Lord Death and strategic plans with Azusa and the lack of someone important, someone whose face he can't recall. But he *can* recall the specifics of the electrical storm behind them. "The effects of the field won't disappear just because you stepped out of it for a moment. Go back in and you're throwing your life away."

"I know that," she snaps back. "But if I don't what will happen?!"

A question, a declaration; Marie's voice again, high with assumed fury laid thin over the start of tears. She sounds *weak*, terrified; Stein would tell her to try harder, to clear her voice into authority if he thought it would matter, if he thought she *could.* Footsteps in snow, Marie's voice again: "No, wait!" The silence in response is as loud as a shout.

"Expulsion." She's talking to herself, almost whimpering. "I can't even do that. They don't let brand new teachers go around expelling students. Not that *threatening* to stopped them from going anyway." She sucks in air, catching the breath in her throat with the choke of sobs, and when she speaks again her voice is lost and wet with tears. "I'm an adult. And their teacher. And I can't do *anything.* What do I do? I let them go, what if they never come back?"

Stein's hand is very heavy. It takes all his concentration to pull it from the ground, to drop it onto Marie's lap. It lands atop her clenched fist in an approximation of physical comfort. He can't feel her body heat at all. "Don't cry, Marie." He blinks and his memories swirl to the surface, flickering back through years of history to remind him who he is. "The failure of the mission." The judgment of Lord Death. "Any harm that comes to the students, everything." Blame. Guilt. "It's all my fault." He drags his head up to look at the weapon's face.

His weapon. *Spirit.* Maka fighting an enemy too strong for her, Spirit refusing to look at him, the Kishin's revival, the heat of illusory rain on his face and laughter in his throat, electricity through his skin and blood on his hands and thread over wounds, comfort and reunion and impossible loss, still impending, not here yet. Not quite yet.

"All of it." His body collapses to the ground, but the snow is cold now and he rolls away, turning his face up to the silvery sky. Tears surge up his throat, impossibly many for an unfathomable failure, and by the time they make it to the air they have twisted into laughter.


	29. Words

Spirit doesn't even try to sleep the night after Medusa turns herself over to Academy custody. He needs his rest - it will be much easier to face the witch with a good night's sleep - but the most he'll be able to manage is tangling himself in sheets for a few hours and waking up panicked and sweaty. Better to stay awake, to slump over his kitchen table and stare into his distorted reflection across the top of his cold coffee.

The worst is between three and five in the morning, when the clock itself is judging him for being awake when it is too late even for night owls and too early for the earliest risers. The whole of the City goes silent, the heavy weight of sleep collapsing over all of its inhabitants, and the quiet fills with sounds produced from Spirit's memories. He actually gets up from the table, turns the lights off and pulls the curtains back from the window and stares out over the velvety darkness of the sleeping city.

He doesn't deliberately think of Stein, but the meister is in his thoughts all the time ever since the night the Kishin awoke and more since his collapse during the BREW expedition. He didn't see any of the fallout directly, has continued to steadfastly avoid any contact even though now he can't decide if that was even the right decision in the first place. It's been too long now, time weighing down his original silence until it becomes a wall to any attempt at contact, and this latest report on Stein's ever-worsening state is just another in a collection of events that make Spirit doubt, that pile guilt on him, and that make it impossible to overcome the inertia he has already built up.

He can't even be sure Stein would recognize him at this point. Marie reported around audible tears that he was entirely unresponsive for a period, stared at her like he didn't see her at all, and if he is having trouble identifying the weapon he lives with and sees on a daily basis, Spirit can't imagine that he'll have any more luck than the hammer. And it may be selfish but he can't bear the idea of Stein looking past him, looking through him like he's not there, like he's a stranger. The night of the revival was bad enough, is still giving him enough waking nightmares of blood and pain and screams, and recently his imagination is getting more creative, drowning him in his sleep and tearing away all his memory along with his consciousness until he dreams of wandering down empty streets, looking for something that he can't remember and that is retreating faster than he can chase it.

The darkness starts to fade into the ashy grey of morning before Spirit is ready for it to. It would be nice to stay where he is, huddled on his floor in the dark while the world sleeps around him, until this is all over, until everything awakens from what *must* be a nightmare of catastrophic proportions. Maybe *he* is the one lost in a hallucination. The idea is so nearly a comfort that he laughs, the sound echoing hollowly off the empty walls, and tips backward to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling until the urge to cry has passed.

Spirit sits up once the sun has come up over the horizon of buildings to angle through the glass of his window and heat his face. That means it's almost a reasonable hour to be awake. His jacket and tie are tossed over the back of the couch, his shirt wrinkled from his sleepless night, and he can't look like he's been awake all night or people will start to worry. He has to look like the Death Scythe he is, the more so today than ever before.

He changes his shirt and his pants, knots his tie while considering his appearance in the mirror. He looks exhausted; there's nothing he can do about the shadows under his eyes, but firming his mouth into determination instead of almost-tears helps him look serious instead of weak, and once his hair is smoothed and his jacket is on he looks almost like he deserves the respect he is about to demand from a witch who should be dead. He practices his expression on the walk to the Academy, striding past the few early risers of the day. They move out of his way, which would be gratifying if he didn't feel like such a sham.

The Academy is utterly still, not the soothing peace of the nighttime city but the strained silence of panicked people walking on tiptoe waiting for an explosion. There are two men waiting near the entrance; Spirit vaguely recognizes their faces from classes years past but doesn't recall names.

"Morning," he says. He sounds awake, confident, serious. He doesn't sound a thing like himself. Stein's fake smile, his friendly exterior for Maka after Soul's surgery comes to mind, and Spirit's composure nearly slides away.

"Death Scythe," one of the men offers as greeting. Both are wearing matching suits, both are probably twice as strong and twice as broad as Spirit himself. Everything about them, their matching clothes, the strain of fabric over their shoulders, their sunglasses and jawlines and short haircuts, says 'bodyguard.' Spirit tells himself that he doesn't feel inadequate.

"Are you ready to collect the witch?" the other suggests. Spirit tips his chin down, definitely doesn't think about the extra inches of height both his backups have on him, and nods firmly.

"Let's go."

They let him lead the way without fighting for precedence. It would almost be easier if one would, even though Spirit knows rationally that it would undermine his presence and his role as *the* Death Scythe, the impressive aura he is trying to cultivate. He will need all the illusion he can get, though; Medusa knows perfectly well what he is and what he is *not*, and intimidation has never been his strong suit. That's what Stein was always for.

There is a murmur of voices as they come down the corridor to Medusa's cell. At first Spirit thinks the witch is talking to herself, rambling to the unhearing walls, but as they draw close enough to catch the words his eyes pull out the white coat among the shadows, the slump of broad shoulders, and even before he hears what Medusa is saying Spirit has the awful drop of his stomach, the panic of 'I'm not ready' rising under his skin bracketed with 'too bad,' and *then* he hears the witch.

"I *need* you," she is saying, and Stein might as well be deaf for all he responds, but Spirit sees that night at the anniversary party like a filmy overlay, Medusa leaning in towards Stein's lips and Stein not moving away, and he remembers the silence in Stein's head when Medusa offered partnership to him during their fight underground, and a lack of response can be just as damning as acceptance.

"It's time, Stein," the witch's voice continues, and Stein hasn't looked up at the approaching trio and hasn't answered but he is *standing* there still, *listening* to her offer, and Spirit is *furious,* angry right down to his bones with the frustration of jealousy and anger and betrayal all at once. "You know that, don't you?"

Stein shifts and for a horrible moment Spirit thinks he's going to answer Medusa or turn and see him and the weapon isn't sure which would be worse. But he does neither, just shifts his glasses against the bridge of his nose, and his hands are shaking but so are Spirit's and words are pouring across Spirit's tongue too fast and angry to call back.

"Terribly sorry." The words sound like ice, sharp and cold and biting. "Am I interrupting?" This isn't what he means, this isn't how this should go, but he doesn't have control over his mouth anymore and the anger is spilling out bloody between them. "Get out of here, Stein," and even the name twists hard on that emotion. "You know you shouldn't leave your lab right now."

Stein turns his face into the light and smiles. It's weak and shaky and trembling with hysteria, and the glasses over his eyes don't catch the light protectively like they usually do so Spirit can see the terror in the green, the way they aren't quite focusing on him. Stein's skin is ghastly pale, closer in color to his hair than to any natural tone, and when he raises his hands in a gesture of apology and laughs the sound of his voice tearing past his throat chills Spirit's blood.

Stein shuffles backward down the corridor, into the shadows, and Spirit wants to go after him, wants to wrap his fingers around those ashen wrists and pull those shaking shoulders to him and just *hold* Stein until he stops trembling, until he comes back from wherever he is, but he can't make his feet move and his anger has solidified into guilty horror in his veins and he has a *job,* he has *responsibilities,* and he can't abandon those to chase after his *former* meister, that's what got them into this situation in the first place.

He turns away towards the cell door.


	30. Fog

The fog is thick, heavy with water and the color of smoke, pulling hard on Stein's lungs until even walking down the street is exhausting. His feet drag themselves forward of their own accord even as his brain whispers *stop, slow down, rest.* He has to *obey,* he has to go back where he is supposed to be, he has let *everyone* down and he needs to *hide,* to *protect* himself behind the walls he erected around himself years ago.

"Hurry."

He doesn't recognize the voice. It sounds almost like Spirit, but there is a sibilant hiss under it that Spirit's tone has never held, and the weapon is nowhere to be seen anyway.

"You must hurry, Stein. It's time to shed your fake skin." The scar curving across Stein's cheek itches, raised into active attention by the words. "Give in and do what must be done." But he *can't* give in, he has to *resist* even though he doesn't know, now, what he's resisting or why or how to continue.

"Look for the light." But there *is* no light, the fog is as thick as Stein has ever seen it, he can barely see a block ahead of him and there is no sign of the sun anywhere. "The way out is up ahead."

The ground shifts under him - is he walking? is he gliding? is the world slipping away beneath his feet? - and then there is another voice, sharp and familiar and right in front of him.

"Stop right there, Stein."

Stein does, freezes like he's never been moving at all, because he *knows* that voice but he can't *sense* him, why can't he feel the speaker he should be *able* to at this range. He should be able to see him too - but even as he thinks it the fog clears, like a curtain drawing back, and there he is, standing in front of an enormous gate with his hands in his suit pockets.

"Spirit," Stein tries to say, but the words don't work, they stick on his tongue and choke his throat, and all he can do is stare at Spirit, at the cold in his eyes and the set to his jaw.

"Where do you think you're going?" There is no warmth under the words, no forgiveness at all, just barely-restrained anger and judgment, and every word hits like Spirit is slapping him instead of speaking. "You should be locked in the laboratory."

That is an echo, pulls at some half-forgotten thing, words overlaid over some previous conversation, but that just makes them hurt more, fills them with weight and power they didn't have alone, and Stein cringes back, tries to retreat instead of closing because he *remembers* that, getting closer was *bad,* he needs to apologize and explain before Spirit leaves again.

"That's what I'm doing," he offers, a plea for understanding. "Trying to find my way back. The fog is too thick. And I think I've lost my way." Help me, he tries to say. I can't find my way back without you, I need you to *show* me, but the words won't come. He has the meaning in his head, but all his potential languages fail him and leave him mute and desperate.

"You have." There is no forgiveness there, no understanding. "The Madness is taking over."

Stein wants to step in, to get closer, until he can feel almost-Resonance under his skin and borrowed heat in his veins and can understand what Spirit is saying, what he *means,* what Stein has done wrong and how he can make it better. He has never been very good at fixing things on his own. "I don't understand," he says instead, feet still frozen under him. "What are you talking about?"

Spirit's shoulders collapse, his spine curves, his shirt collar twists into leather around his throat. His teeth go sharp, pointed and drooling, and he is grinning too wide and too vicious and terrifying, and then he speaks and it still *sounds* like him and that is worst of all. "Haven't you realized it yet, Stein? I am the law's hound." The words are aggressive, pleased and threatening and cold in Stein's ears. "I guard this door so no one with a taint of madness can pass through."

Stein stumbles back a step from Spirit, or whatever Spirit has become, or whatever he always has been. His skin prickles in anticipation of teeth breaking it, he can't look away from the razor edges of those jaws, and for all that he can't stop seeing *Spirit* there, even though his head is screaming *wrong wrong WRONG* he can't see *what* exactly is so wrong, the details are sliding away before he can pinpoint them, and isn't this all true anyway, isn't this how it always was?

"You had better not come any closer," Spirit says, and then his voice modulates into a growl that hums under Stein's skin like the Resonance he can't feel, and when he barks Stein turns and walks away, as obedient as a weapon to the implicit command.

The sound cuts off from behind him like a door has shut. Stein twists to look back but the gate is gone, Spirit is gone, there is nothing but more of those endless foggy alleys behind him, and what was he expecting anyway? It's slipping away as fast as he turns to look, frictionless memories skating away from a touch.

"What's happening?" His voice is flat, echoless, like he's in a box instead of the middle of a city.

"Don't cry."

That's not him. It's not Spirit either, an unfamiliar voice. A child? Why would she tell him not to cry, he's not crying. He reaches up to touch his face to check; there is an impression of moisture under his fingers, a mouth open and sobbing, but then it's gone and there's nothing but chilled skin there after all. Why would he be *crying*?

"If you can make it through this anguish, happiness will be waiting on the other side."

*What* anguish? He's lost, not miserable. He feels *fine,* what is she *talking* about? His chest aches, briefly, like he's been gasping for breath around lurching tears, but then the pain is gone.

"No matter how lost you feel," the girl says, but he's looking right at her and she's not speaking, the voice is over his shoulder, and when he turns there's another, a second child, whose mouth stills as the sentence picks back up in the throat of the first. "There's always a way out."

He glances over his shoulder, down the alleyways behind him, and there are four of them, surrounding him, blocking the four routes he has to choose from. But that's too paranoid, it's not like they're a *threat,* not when he has his Soul Force and they're just little girls, they're probably in more need of help than he is. He swallows back his panic, drops into his adult voice. "Are you little girls lost in here too?"

"What do you mean 'girls'?"

It's from behind him. The pathways before him are clear. They have always been clear, he has been standing here staring down an empty path, that's impolite, he *knows* that, he learned that years ago, he should *face* people when he's talking to them. He turns to see the child behind him.

"It's just me. I'm all alone with you."

That's *dangerous,* *he* is dangerous, children shouldn't be left alone with him, even when he was young he *hurt* people, that is all he has *ever* done. The girl holds her right hand out to him.

"Just you and me and that's okay." Her words are meant to be soothing, slow and comforting like she's talking to a skittish pet. "I came here to get you."

Stein leans back, away from her offered hand. There is no *reason* for his body to be tingling with adrenaline, no reason for his heart to be racing, but everything in him wants to run, to turn and flee from this tiny girl offering him her hand.

"Come with me. We'll follow the path. Pretty soon it'll lead us right out of here."

There is *no* reason for his panic. None. Even as he thinks it, it begins to dissipate and he can move again. She's just a little girl, far younger than the Academy students, and he can't leave her *alone* in the city, he has *responsibilities.* He reaches out to take her hand, and it feels normal, cool and tiny in his, and she pulls gently to lead him down the alley.

"Can't you see she's a witch?"

The fingers around Stein's hand tighten, slither up his arm, the girl vanishing down the alley even as he stares at her. A snake lunges at his face, snapping towards his glasses. He jerks back, snaps his arm hard to shake the thing off. It smacks against the cobblestone, hissing at him, and then a foot comes down on it and it evaporates into dark smoke. Adrenaline pulses through Stein's body, rushing his heart and gasping his breath.

"You can't stay here forever, you know. You have somebody waiting for you."

Stein leans forward, presses his palms against his thighs to hold himself up while he tries to catch his breath. Somebody waiting. A face flickers when he blinks, features he should recognize but doesn't, blue eyes, sharp jawline, easy smile, and then it's gone.

"It's time for you to leave this place." The voice is calm, steady and flat and reassuring. "But be careful of the witch. If you let the *Madness* take you, you'll never find the way out," and Stein can hear the capital, can feel the weight of sincerity in the words.

He turns, looks at the speaker. It's another child, a boy this time, all in grey the color of the fog and of his silvery hair. Even his skin is grey, pale like he's never left the shrouded city, but his eyes are olive-green, steady on Stein's when he stares at him.

He processes what the boy has said. "But how do I leave?"

"That's easy. All you have to do is think about where you're supposed to be."

Another flicker of that face, that smile. Stein drops his gaze to the flat cobblestone, trying to call back the connection of a name to the features. "Where I'm *supposed* to be?" It's gone, but now there's something else, something about the color of the boy's eyes. He looks back up. "Who are you, kid?"

There is no one there at all, just the empty grey street. A prickle of confusion runs down Stein's spine and then it is gone. Where he is *supposed* to be.

When he takes a step forward, the fog blows away in front of him, as if he's a gust of wind, and the shadowy alley clears into an open space, the buildings sliding past like Stein is running instead of taking a step forward. The gate is there again, tall and impressive with a blood-red bar set across it. And Spirit is there too, tail curled around himself and sound asleep, a gold chain running from his collar to a screw affixed to the stone beneath him.

Asleep. That is important, it is important that Spirit not *know,* that Spirit not *catch* him, that Stein keep this secret. The bar looms over his head, far too large for him to move on his own.

"The place where I'm supposed to be," he says aloud, and the barrier evaporates, erasing from right to left as if he is blowing dust away from a tabletop. The gate slides open just wide enough to let Stein through, and he steps through as the golden chain clinks behind him.

"Come back here Stein!" Spirit's voice, angry and vicious and almost panicked, sounds over his shoulder, but Stein doesn't turn, and the gate closes between them. When Stein looks up, his laboratory is in front of him, grey and patchworked and illuminated by a still red moon suspended in the sky.

"The laboratory?"

*You shouldn't leave your lab right now.*

Where he is supposed to be.

"It's a good thing I'm home now." He steps forward. "But I still violated my curfew and ran off without telling anyone. I wonder what excuse I should use." He *will* need an excuse, there is always someone waiting for him, someone to look after him, someone who will worry.

A white boot lands in front of him and he stops. That should be familiar, he should *recognize* that, but...he looks up, up the long stretch of the laboratory wall, and Marie is standing above him, her golden hair whipping in the wind over the city.

"Marie!" It's *dangerous* up there, what is she *doing*? She doesn't answer and Stein doesn't wait for one, throws open the door of the laboratory and bolts up stairs three at a time, taking all the shortcuts he has built into the lab for his personal use over the years.

The wind is icy on the roof, cutting right past his coat, and the city below is clear, alleys outlined by the nighttime glow. Marie is staring down too, still perched on the edge of the building, feet bare against the rough surface.

"What are you *doing* Marie!" Stein blurts as he rushes forward. She must not be *thinking,* why would she be up here in the first place?

"From up here, the city looks so small." Her voice is quiet, thoughtful, almost sad. "Kind of like a prison floating in the clouds. Don't you think?"

A prison?

She turns, reaching up to push the wave of her hair back from her face. "Somewhere out there, I'm sure there's a world that will fit you better. Goodbye Stein."

And she is falling, dropping gracefully over the edge almost without moving, and Stein lunges forward as he screams her name but it's too far, there's too much distance or he moves too slowly, and by the time he makes it to the edge all he can do is look down at the unnatural twist to the weapon's fallen form.

A girl comes up the steps below, dressed in a black hood, bare feet smacking soft against stone. She is looking at the body when she speaks. "Aww. Looks like she died." Her voice changes, drops low before she goes on. "But wait. Isn't that what you wanted?"

Wanted? He never *wanted* this, never *wanted* Marie to…affection in the weapon's golden eye, warm touches across but not under his skin, a wavelength always reaching for more than he had left to give, wanting something he offered up to another long ago.

"You never cared about her the way she cared about you."

The way she cared about you. The way she *loved* you. The realization is blinding, explaining all the years of oddities Stein could never be bothered to unravel, and of *course* he couldn't love her, there's only even been *Spirit,* what a *ridiculous* thing to want from him. He grins, relieved and amused, and the world goes black.

"Bye, Marie."


	31. Messenger

Spirit spends the whole time it takes to walk from the Death Room to Stein's laboratory trying to frame the words in his head, trying to find a way to say things kindly, to make the fact of what Lord Death has told him less awful. He can't. Maybe it's the perpetual insomnia and maybe it's the shock of Stein's departure and maybe it's his own aching sense of injustice, but by the time the lab comes into sight his mind is just as blank and pained as when Lord Death gave him the news this morning.

"We're calling off the search for Stein, Spirit. We can't afford to send anyone else out after him, especially when he's not likely to be in his right mind. We have bigger problems to worry about right now than one rogue meister."

*What problems?* Spirit had wanted to demand, hadn't. *After all the exceptions you made for him, all the effort you went to to keep him here, now you're just going to let him walk away without a fight?* But the words were harsher in his head, cut sharper turned on himself, and if he can't go after Stein when everything in him wants to, if *his* responsibility keeps him trapped in the city with Lord Death, then there truly is no one left.

Marie opens the door as soon as Spirit knocks. She is dressed, alert, but her visible eye is red-rimmed and her shirt is slightly askew, and Spirit doubts that she has slept at all since Stein went missing last night. That's okay. They're together in that as well.

"Spirit! It's good to see you," she says, and she sounds sincere. "Come in." She holds the door open and he steps through, even though he wants to tell her the news and leave, wants to refuse the offer of hospitality that she will regret in a moment. "I'll make us some tea."

Coffee is the last thing Spirit wants right now; he has been drinking it non-stop to keep his energy up by force as much as possible, and the taste reminds him of Stein, but he can't refuse her with a mouth that won't function and she's gone already, sweeping into the kitchen so fast that he wonders if she senses the news, if she sees the bad tidings in his eyes and is trying to delay the inevitable reveal. It's fine. He doesn't have the strength to fight her on this.

The laboratory is familiar and foreign at once, the walls the same as he remembers but the furniture cleaner, the lighting brighter. There are plants in the corner, color in the surroundings. It looks like Marie lives here, there's no way around that particular fact, and for all the stitches and predominant grey Stein is noticeably absent. The building feels empty with the lack of his presence, like a shell less its occupant, and Marie's attempts to improve the surroundings bleed desperation instead of the cheer they are intended to.

Spirit wonders if it is different when Stein is here, if the plants and the light are warm and comforting instead of incongruous. He wonders if he will ever be able to find out, now.

He thinks about sitting on the couch. Doesn't. It is easier to stand, even though his knees are shaking, easier to hide the tremble in his hands in his pockets, easier to firm his back and let the focus solidify the choke in his voice. He almost has himself under control, almost doesn't want to cry, by the time Marie comes back with two cups of coffee.

She sets them on the coffee table, sits down, clasps her hands together. Spirit can see them tremble, can feel his own skin shift in harmony with hers, wonders if it's a result of their shared grief or their shared status as Stein's weapons or their shared affection for their singular meister. He wishes he could tell Marie everything, wishes they could sit together on the couch and let their coffee go cold while they talk, wishes she could tell him everything will be okay and Stein will come back to them both.

But she can't. She can't know everything will be okay, she can't comfort him, he can't tell her how he feels, and he can't let himself break apart or he will never find his pieces again.

"Sit down," she says, high and strained. "Before the coffee goes cold."

"Marie." His voice sounds cold, hard, unfeeling. It's better than the alternative. Lord Death's words pour from his memory across his tongue, the harsh words easier to borrow than to rephrase. "We're calling off the search for Stein."

She looks up at him, startled into eye contact at his statement. Her golden eye is wide and stunned and, as she keeps watching him, hardens into judgment.

"Call off the search? But why?"

"He's already left the city," Spirit says, hearing the words from a distance, from a stranger's mouth. "The ways things are right now…"

*The Kishin is loose. Lord Death needs me. I'm not his partner. There is no one who can go. He is lost already.*

"We can't afford to send anyone else to look." The words drag in his throat, even the weight of Lord Death's declaration not sufficient to relieve him of the betrayal of the decision.

"But it's so obvious what he's doing." Marie is desperate, verging into anger as she goes on. "He's gone after Medusa."

Spirit agrees. He *knows* that's where Stein has gone, and there is no part of Spirit Albarn that doesn't want to drop everything and go after his meister and kill Medusa several times over, to seize Stein and drag him back to sanity and to Death City and to *Spirit,* forcibly if necessary. But Death Scythe has responsibilities, Death Scythe has duties, and Death Scythe can't leave the city to go after a single meister, even the legendary meister Franken Stein, even *his* meister.

"If so, it's even worse than we thought. No one from the Academy…" Not Spirit, not Lord Death, not Marie. "Can so much as lay a *finger* on that witch." He can't look at Marie, can't face the betrayal and anger and judgment in her face. It is too much a mirror of his own feelings. He tips his head, lets his hair fall forward to cover his face in shadow. "Anyway, I came to tell you we have a Death Scythe mission for you." He turns towards the safety of the door. "Time to get it together," he says, and he isn't talking to Marie anymore at all. "Get back to *work.*" The last word is harsh, grating against his vocal chords, and he wants to cry but he is sure, now, that he has no more tears left to give, not anymore.

"Is that all you care about?" Marie echoes his thoughts. "You're not just a Death Scythe," she says, but that *is* all he is, that is all Spirit has ever been since he left Stein. "You're his partner too!" Ah. That hurts. Spirit hisses against that one, refrains from snapping that he's *not,* that he's *not* Stein's partner anymore no matter how much he wants to be, lets Marie keep going. There's a dark satisfaction in hearing the words he is thinking spoken aloud, thrown at him like daggers. "How can you give up so *easily*?"

*Because Lord Death asked it of me. Because Stein had you. Because he didn't *need* me anymore.* All are true, none are enough. *Because I couldn't fail him again.* Closer. *Because I realized I needed him.*

He doesn't say any of it. When he speaks his voice is weighed down with past tears and self-inflicted guilt. "He's been fighting all this time. Keeping the Madness locked in." *All alone. Without me. Why would he stay when there's no support for him here? When I *told* him to leave?* The handle of the door is heavy in his hand, as cold across his palm as Stein's skin has always felt. "Maybe he's stronger than you think he is, Marie."

*He's stronger than I thought he was, to fight this all alone all this time.* The door opens, the night breeze blows cold over Spirit's face. He doesn't have any heat left to give it. *Maybe he'll come back.* It's hard to believe the words in his head. He has been so often wrong, about so many things.

The door clicks shut behind him.


	32. Skins

The black disappears when Stein blinks, replaced by light so bright his eyes refuse to focus for a moment. He blinks again, hard, tries to flinch away from the blinding white, but his body is held down and he can't get away any farther than turning his head sideways. As he blinks again, a fourth time, his vision clears, starts to give back some of the specifics of the space around him. The walls are bright pink, black liquid dripping from the seam with the ceiling, stitches patterning them - his lab, then, he's inside. Where he has been all along. His skin is cold from wind, he can't explain that, but it is fading under the pressure of the...operating light, his mind supplies, and a moment later his reason catches up with observation, pours fright into his body, because he is *tied down* on an *operating table,* he can't *move* he can't *run* and there is someone *else* here too, he can't feel their wavelength but he can see movement, hear sound near his feet.

Stein tips his head, trying to see past the white light, and the shadowy figure turns, steps into his field of view. Green scrubs, face mask, white latex gloves...and red hair, blue eyes, he knows that face, what is *Spirit* doing here, this is all wrong and why can't he *feel* Spirit's wavelength, that *can't* be Spirit but that is the shape of his hands and those are his cheekbones and *what* is going on?

"You went through the wrong exit." That is Spirit's voice, but it is layered over with vicious satisfaction that has never been in his weapon's throat. "The Madness has taken over just like I thought it would."

The wrong exit. He fell through the wrong exit. Falling...jumping…

*Marie.*

"What happened to Marie?" He remembers laughing, remembers *relief.* Why would he be relieved, that makes no sense. Panic and guilt rise in equal parts, sweeping through him like a wave.

"No need to worry." It would be easier if the purring rumble in that voice didn't cut straight to Stein's blood, didn't sweep past the panic and the suspicion to fire him as quick as flame to paper. "You'll forget everything once I'm done with you." The knife in his hand catches the light, glares it back into Stein's eyes until his vision blurs out into gold and white.

"Everyone you knew in your old life." Names flicker fast: Spirit, Marie, Lord Death, MakaBlack*StarDeaththeKidTsubakiSoulLizPatty. "Even your own name."

Stein sucks in air against the weight of mingled panic and curiosity, interest warring with fright, stay versus run. "What are you going to do to me?"

"You have to be *punished.*" That words rolls over Spirit's tongue like a caress. "You broke the law and gave in to Madness." He leans in, so close his breath blows warm over Stein's skin. Goosebumps raise in the path of the heated air.

"I need to cut you open and fix you up." The knife flicks around his fingers, twisting bright and razor-sharp around his motions. Laughter bubbles up Spirit's throat but that's not Spirit's laughter, that's not Spirit's voice, and Stein tries to twist away but his restraints won't let him move anywhere

"No," he says, "Stop it," he wails, "*Don't!*" he shrieks, the sound crackling through the air like electricity, but the knife still comes down, tears into his skin as he flinches away. Blood pours over his face, blinding against his eyelashes, hot across his cheek, and he screams, raw and unformed and panicked because this *isn't* *Spirit.* If it were he would lie still, he would let his weapon do whatever he wanted, cut him, hurt him, kill him if he wanted, but he can't feel a wavelength and this *isn't* his weapon and that means this is a *lie,* this is an illusion or a hallucination or a puppet and he can't *handle* that, can't process the flicker-hot of *want* all along his spine in response to the pain across his face, and when he pulls *hard* the restraints tug, snap tight and bruising against his wrists, and then give and he's free.

There is a hand that closes hard on his, a body coming down to hold him in place, and Stein shuts his eyes and swings blindly, and when his knuckles crunch against bone and there is a wail of pain with Spirit's voice he tells himself it's not, it's not Spirit, it's *not* his weapon, but when the grip falters and his hand come free he has to open his eyes to see, and he doesn't mean to look but he can't help it, his eyes are drawn to the red, and he can tell himself it's *not* all he wants but it *looks* like Spirit crumpled in front of him and clutching his shattered nose and staring up at Stein with eyes blue and wide with betrayal, and Stein's throat makes a whimper that he never intended to let free before he twists away from those eyes and bolts for the door.

He doesn't truly see anything else for some time. The stitches on the walls, sometimes grey, sometimes skin-pink, shifting around him like they're breathing...those pull long and stretch like taffy, and then he's outside with that red moon overhead, but he's *always* been outside, did he ever go into the lab at all? Spirit's face comes back, pained eyes and trembling lips, and Marie's still body and he runs, flat-out sprints until the fog is back, until his memories are lost to the shift of time and space and there is just him, just his head and his senses and a fading sense of impossible guilt.

When he slows and stops, takes in his surroundings, he is on a bridge, the cobblestones even under his feet. There is water beneath, or there should be water, there *must* be water, but he can't see it for the silvery fog rising off the unknowable surface under him. His vision is splintered, crossed over by a cracked lens in his glasses. He didn't even notice that happening, can barely pull up the attack that must have shattered the glass and torn the skin over his eye at the same time, and when he starts to remember his thoughts pull back with the rapidity of instinct, a hand drawing back from a burn before the brain even senses the danger.

His legs fold under him, shaking from adrenaline and exhaustion and lack of will, and when his body gives out every bruise and cut on his body screams for attention. The scalp wound drips bloody into his vision, splashes across his eyelashes and the glass of his lenses, but his wrists and ankles burn with fast-fading recollections of bruises, his back aches from a violent jerk to free himself from something he can't call up, and his skin shudders with horror and anticipation both, craving and shying from a touch of something foreign and impossible.

"Don't fight it, Stein." The voice is familiar but the face is wrong, glowing eyes and shadowed face and swishing tail. "I've giving you the chance to be reborn. Let me cut you open."

If it were anyone else, Stein would let it happen, would surrender over to the violation of his skin, would shut his eyes to the pain and to his self-preservation and hope for oblivion, but this is *wrong,* twisting the truth until it is offensive on a level even he can't condone, and he turns away from the shape even though he can't get to his feet and can't quite remember *why* it is such an affront.

"Yes, a new world is waiting." Another figure along the opposite side of the bridge, holding golden hair and an inhuman face in its hands. The head spins slowly against the palms and Stein wants to shut his eyes to it but he can't remember how. "It's time for you to shed your fake skin."

All of Stein's body itches, like the stitches across his flesh are coming alive, pulling tight and agonizing, and the voices take on weight and force and crowd in around him, pinning him in place, and it is then that he finds his words.

"Shut up shut up!" he shrieks. He sounds young, desperate, pained. His head twists hard on his neck, shakes violently to smear the visions in his eyes. "Shut up!"

"This is the fruit of life." A new voice, familiar from recent history instead of fading and corrupted memories, a girl's voice. Stein looks up and there she is, the little girl from the crossroads, illuminated in a beam of sunlight and offering him an apple the color of Spirit's hair. "One bite of this and all your suffering will come to an end." Her voice is soothing, reassuring. "You'll feel *much* better."

His head aches and his body is exhausted but more than that his thoughts are jumbled, emotions tangled together into love-hate-rejection, and he can't keep straight what he has lost and what he has refused and what he *wants* anymore, and the apple is *glowing* in the sunlight and the color is like the warm red of blood and he reaches out to take the fruit from the girl's hand.

"Don't fall for it," comes a voice behind him, and it is a human soul under his fingertips, blue and soft and there is no one else there, there never was at all. Stein jerks back like the thing will burn him, Academy training rushing in on him that he had forgotten, *you must never eat the soul of a human,* *that is the path of the demon,* *you will be hunted by the Academy,* *it is *wrong.** The last is in Spirit's voice, morals drilled blood-deep by repetition and effort, and Stein is breathing as hard as if the movement of his hand took the effort of running a marathon. The soul evaporates, blown away by a wind that should take the fog with it but doesn't.

"You were reaching for a shadow." It is the boy's voice, from before, and this time Stein doesn't turn, imagines that silver hair and those green eyes less the childish curve of chin and cheek and he *knows.* "An illusion *you* created."

The emphasis is unneeded. Stein has the pieces now, the insight he needs. He turns and yes, he recognizes those clothes, seen now from the outside and not the inside, the shape of those eyes uncovered by glasses.

"*You,*" he says aloud. "I know you. You're *me.*"

The boy - himself - smiles, and it is almost gentle.

"Just then," Stein says, "When I went through that door, I was lost for a moment." Marie falling, a scalpel bright in Spirit's hand...he pulls back from the images. "I wasn't sure if that's where you meant." He can't remember the last time he was sure of *anything.* It has been too long since he had a guide, since he lost his compass. "The place I'm supposed to be." *Not* the lab, then? But Spirit *told* him to go back, Spirit *told* him that was where he should be. If not the lab, where?

"Weren't you satisfied with your life?"

"Yes." The answer comes easy and fast. "I was. Even in a world governed by morality, I made it a long time without feeling guilt." Judging everything by his weapon's standards worked, kept him in line even when he couldn't make the correct decision on his own because it was easy to call up Spirit, to think through what Spirit would want him to do. And he was regaining his weapon, they were talking and fighting together and sometimes Spirit would smile at him, easy and sincere as he used to, and that was enough. Yes, he was satisfied. "But now…" Now there is nothing but loneliness, rejection and anger and he doesn't know *why,* wants to fix it, wants to make it better, but he doesn't know what he *did* in the first place.

"You finally feel guilt, but you don't understand why." Stein lets his head drop, lets his eyes unfocus on the stones under his knees, lets the words wash over him and give shape to the mess in his head. "Because instead of fulfilling your own desires, you found something more important."

Spirit's face flickers bright in Stein's head, a smile worth giving up *everything* for. And then it is gone, spiraling away into darkness.

"You already know the right choice."

Marie, Azusa, Justin, B.J.. People he is going to *hurt.* People he *has* hurt.

"You just have to make it."

His students. Maka, Soul, Black*Star and Tsubaki and Kid and the Thompson girls and Kilik and the twins and Ox and Harvar and Kim and Jackie and he *can't* stay, his personal desires have *nothing* to do with this, not when he is a danger to those around him as well as himself.

"That's why you called me, isn't it?"

Stein looks back, at his younger self, himself before he learned how to care and before he found that there was something more in the world than his own Madness, and he knows what has to happen.

"Open the right door and walk through it. The world you seek is waiting for you."

"The world that I'm seeking?" Stein says back aloud. When he turns, there is a brown wooden door standing unsupported in his wake. He pushes himself to his feet to face it.

"There's always a way out." There is a way to remove the danger, to protect the things he cares about. His hand touches the handle. It is warm like it has been illuminated by the unseen sun.

"The place I'm supposed to be."

When the door opens, golden light pours out over him. He shuts his eyes against the glare, steps forward into the heat, and even as his Madness swallows his mind, the warmth on his skin is comforting.


End file.
